'Challengers' - Blackwell I

Some 2004 election observers have argued that Ohio SoS Blackwell harmed himself for the '06 Ohio governor election with his seemingly irrational, bizarre, and incosistent decisions pertaining to placing "Challengers" in election polling places.

The undersigned argues contrarily that Blackwell acted for the protection of Ohio voters by attempting to reform a defunct, challenger law for the following two reasons:

1) to prevent on election day itself, a chaos beyond that of the Palestinian reaction to Arafat's coffin, and,
2) to prevent Ohio from becoming a post-election fiasco exceeding that of the 36-day, 2000 Bush-Gore Florida drama.

That Blackwell succeeded can be demonstrated by the following statistic:
1) Florida 2000: 36 days
2) Ohio in 2004: 14 hours.

Blackwell's fault, well-intended though it was, occurred because he ignored the chief maxim of politics: never produce major legislation in an election year, the year preceding it, or four days prior to the election proper.

While Blackwell acted within his capacity as member of the executive branch in suspending the law, he erred in his attempt to legislate via litigation on 29-October-2004. Blackwell's action must also be viewed against the backdrop of the Ohio Challenger Law and his Herculean efforts to overcome the Aegean Stable of Politics: entrenched bearacracy. Blackwell experienced first-hand the cumbersome burden of bearacracy at both the state and national level in his attempt to fix Ohio's outdated voting systems.


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