Among the many shenanigans that characterized the 2004 presidential election in the State of Ohio was Republican Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell’s Election Day decision to move large numbers of voting machines out of busy inner-city precincts where voters, mostly Black (like Ken Blackwell), were experiencing extremely long lines, out to White suburbs where wait times were no more than 10-15 minute, at worst. Voters, growing impatient after stand for hours in the rain, to use inadequate voting machine resources, left in droves. I don’t recall Blackwell’s rationale for doing this, but I’m sure (wink wink) that his motives were totally above board. George W. Bush ended up winning Ohio by a small margin of 118,775 votes. Exit polls showed that African-American voters, which made up approximately 10% of all votes cast, preferred John Kerry by a margin of 84% to 16%. It is not a stretch to imagine that Ken Blackwell’s backhanded disenfranchisement of countless voters cost John Kerry Ohio, and handed George W. Bush another four years to run the American economy into the ground. So elections are not won or lost on the basis of individual voter fraud, but as a result of conspiratorial, criminal activity on the part of elected officials that cannot separate official duties from partisan hackery.
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