The idea of double voting has become infamous in places like Chicago, Detroit, Miami and Philadelphia, but now Democrats and liberal activist groups want to bring it to Ohio. One of the flaws built into State Issue 2 (which expands early voting in Ohio) allows a voter to essentially cast two ballots in an election - one by absentee ballot and the other by provisional ballot. According to the Issue 2 language:
An elector to whom a ballot has been mailed, but which has not been received by the issuing county board of elections prior to the election, may cast a provisional ballot on election day. If the elector’s first ballot is received by the tenth day following the election, the provisional ballot shall not be counted.
In other words, any Ohio voter could legally cast two ballots, and it would be up to the county board of elections to weed out the double votes. Talk about a system ripe for fraud.
"It allows voters to vote twice," said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. "It's a very important, problematic issue. We're concerned the boards of election won't catch duplicate provisional and absentee ballots."
Critics also take aim at a provision requiring county boards of election to count any absentee ballot postmarked as late as Election Day and received as late as 10 days after the election. Currently, absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls on Election Day to be counted.
They say a massive absentee ballot vote could mean the public may not know the winner of a close race for days. ("Support shifts on absentee vote reform," Jim Provance, The [Toledo] Blade, 10/9/05)
Dr. Herb Asher, an OSU political science professor supporting State Issues 2-5, says opponents of Issue 2 are just "trying to scare people by talking about fraud, which is a false issue." Oh really?
"Much of the voter fraud taking place today occurs not at polling places but through absentee ballots." ("The Voter-ID Consensus," editorial, Wall Street Journal, 09/22/05)
"No-excuse absentee ballot laws make it easier for campaigns to engage in tactics such as requesting absentee ballots in the names of low-income public housing residents and senior citizens, and then either intimidating them into casting votes or completing their ballots for them. ...The NBC affiliate in Milwaukee, WTMJ, filmed Democratic campaign workers handing out food and small sums of money to residents at a home for the mentally ill in Kenosha, after which the patients were shepherded into a separeate room and given absentee ballots. ...The center had ordered absentee ballots on behalf of all the residents and then allowed Democratic workers to run a bingo game there. The residents were induced to vote with free refreshments and quarters as bingo prizes." (Stealing Elections, John Fund, 2004, p. 46-47)
Asher uses the state of Oregon as an example of the effectiveness of voting by mail. But even his liberal academic counterparts in that state beg to differ:
"Melody Rose, a liberal professor at Oregon State University, is a severe critic of that state's 100 percent mail-in ballot law. She says it hasn't raised turnout and doesn't save money because it merely shifts the expense from the state to the voter, who must pay for the increasingly expensive postage to deliver the ballot. And she believes that vote-by-mail 'brings a perpetual risk of systemic fraud.' Ballots can easily be stolen from mailboxes and registered voters who don't vote wouldn't bother to alert election officials if they didn't get one." (Stealing Elections, John Fund, 2004, p. 52)
Republican lawmakers at the Statehouse have already introduced a no-fault absentee voting provision, only this time, unlike their liberal counterparts at Reform Ohio Now, it includes tough anti-fraud measures not included in State Issue 2.
Vote NO on State Issue 2, and while you're at it, vote NO on 3, 4, and 5, too.
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