'Challengers' - Blackwell III.A

On February 21 Blackwell made public that he intended to compete for another SoS term rather than run for governor. Governor Taft complimented Blackwell on the 26th with the following comment

“I respect Ken’s decision to continue his public service in Ohio as Secretary of State. I was strongly supportive of him as he explored other potential opportunities to serve. As a former Secretary of State, I have a special appreciation for the role this office plays in the governance of Ohio. Now we know that Ohioans can count on a continuation of Ken Blackwell’s effective service in this statewide office.”

The 'other potential opportunities' were governor or quit running. The short press release was very guarded in its tone as Blackwell had been a fierce critic of Taft and even a former compeititor. As future events would show Blackwell's decision proved to be a very fortuitous choice about who was manning the SoS' helm for the next few years.

Then on March 14, the Ohio State House unanimously passed H.B. 5. As per the sponsors' requests, the bill stengthened the hand of the SoS in issuing directives to local Election Boards; clarified the partial hangings of a chad; and founded a Stated Elections Commission. Section 3501.05, which would prove contentious in the 04' election, gave to the SoS the power to ,

"Issue instructions by directives and advisories to members of the boards as to the proper methods of conducting elections; [and,] Prepare rules and instructions for the conduct of elections."

According to the wording of this law, the SoS could by fiat from his office create or remove laws describing how to conduct the state's election's process. This new wording gave to the Secretary a power simlar to the US President's Executive Order.

Blackwell congratulated the house for strengthening Ohio's election process, while also urging

"it is imperative that we undertake these positive efforts to further reinforce our system. I encourage the state senate to swiftly hold hearings and pass this substantial measure toward election reform.”

On May 8 the Ohio State Senate passed a bill similar to the Houses bill. After Blackwell applauded the Senate for quickly passing its version of the bill, he shifted the focus to analyzing the accuracy, reliability, ease of use and public confidence in the punch-card voting system. Should the method fail to meet the required standards, Blackwell recommended that "it should be eliminated." At this early date he was hinting at unreliability of punch-card voting.

*The Governor then signed the bill on May 29, 2001, giving it an effecitve date of August 08. By the stroke of his pen, Governor Taft aggred to create the eleven-member Election System Study Committee composed of state Senators, Representatives, election board officials, members of the public, and headed by SoS Blackwell. More than likely Taft released a press announcement that he had signed it, but the link is broken on his website. Throughout the rest of the year Taft's office never officially released any press announcements as to what was taking place, but this was to be expected since the ball was now firmly in the Secretary's court.

The Committee held its initial meeting on Aug. 28, 2001. The comittee had planned to release its first draft by September 29, but many RINO's balked at Blackwell's desire to require different, and uniform voting systems for those 70 counties that use punch-card ballots. Other members objected by citing the errosion of local control and aired concerns that replacing the punch card system would become unnecessary and expensive. On October 5, the Committee released its initial report one week late. The Dayton Daily News editorial opined aoubt Blackwell "Give him credit for taking on a tough case."

During the heated meetings Blackwell had forcefully stated his posiition, "I think the punch-card system should go tomorrow.'' Jacobson replied "I do not believe we have been given convincing evidence that the punch-card system is flawed." Later on, during an intense debate over removing punch-card ballots, Blackwell characterized Jacobson's arguements as specious, and offered the Senator his Lewis Carroll-autographed copy of "Through the Looking Glass," owing to the Senator's Alice-in-Wonderland type of arguements.

Finally one month after the assigned due date, on October 29, 2001 the comittee released its final watered-down version, whose purpose was to educate the voters who went to the polls. The bill failed to address the issue of eliminating punch card ballots, because Senator Jeff Jacobson (R) opposed such an action. Blackwell had wanted the machines to provide an audit trail in addition to issuing a paper copy of the ballot, so that voter could then double-check for mistakes, with a view to rectifying any errors. Alas, alas, Jacobson's views passed thereby not allowing the voter to right any wrongs. Blaackwell filed a minority report, but to no avail.

As a consolation prize, Representative Lendrum introduced on April 23, 2002, H.B. 566 into the 124th Assembly. The bill was designed to make cosmetic changes to the election system, such as establishing recount procedures, update the voter registry list and establish a permanent five year subcommittee. The bill was substuted into a committee report on November 2, and then never passed the 3rd consideration, which would have freed it from the committee. The Bill never became law.

*Governor Taft's year in Review never mentioned the Secretary's efforts to improve the voting systems in Ohio. Partly because 9/11 took the focus off the 2000 election debacle, thanks to Al Gore, partly because Blackwell is the State's chief election's officer, and partly because nothing much was achieved by Blackwell, no thanks to Senator Jeff Jacobson, there would be no reason to mention Blackwell. Yet if the Governor had wanted he could have pushed to have a system implemented and hurried up the situation. Yet he did nothing and the issue fermented.

Thus ended the state's role in designing any legislation to effectively deal with the problem. In short the state was impotent and Blackwell received from the state a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking. Only the Feds could step in now to fix the problem.

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