Convicted Ohio Rapist May Be Serial Killer

A convicted rapist in Ohio may have been far more evil than previously believed. Anthony Sowell spent 15 years in prison after a rape conviction in 1989. He was released from prison in 2005.



It now looks like Sowell is a serial killer, with at least 10 bodies recovered from his home in Cleveland. He has been charged with aggravated murder in five cases thus far, and more charges are pending. Authorities are now examining missing persons records to see if any of the cases are connected to Sowell.

Law enforcement is coming under scrutiny for their actions as well, since Sowell may have raped a woman after he was released from prison, and it took police 37 days to actually pay a visit to Sowell's residence.

Thirty-seven days passed between the time a woman told police Anthony Sowell choked and raped her in his house and when police went to Imperial Avenue to arrest him.

That time gap has raised the question -- among the crowds of neighbors gathered outside Sowell's home, victims' advocates and at least one city councilman -- if more could have been done to track Sowell, whom police charged Tuesday with five counts of aggravated murder for some of the people found dead at his home.

"I'm not going to point fingers but at the end of the day, someone clearly dropped the ball," Councilman Zack Reed said Tuesday.

Then, there's the issue of the stench that emanated from Sowell's residence. Some neighbors thought that the smell was actually from a food processing plant nearby, but it now appears that the smell was from rotting victims found in and around Sowell's property. No one, law enforcement included, thought that the smell was from decomposing victims.

His parole officers have to be questioning themselves as well, since they simply called on him to see if he was still at the residence, and never actually entered the home.

Police are now looking at vacant lots and buildings in the vicinity to see if Sowell disposed of more bodies in the area. Cadaver dogs and the fire department are also being used to search for remains in Sowell's residence.

Sowell is a one man crime spree.

UPDATE:
No bond for Sowell. You think?

Breaking Down Ohio Provisional Ballots Reveals Interesting Facts

In Ohio, voters cast about 207,000 provisional ballots, roughly 3.6% of all ballots cast. About 167,000 were counted. That means 80% (80.6% to be more precise) of the provisional ballots were eventually counted in the 2008 elections in Ohio.

What happened to the other 20% (19.4%)?

That's 40,000 provisional ballots that were disqualified.

47% of the disqualified ballots were because the person was not registered to vote in Ohio.

That runs to 18,800 people who were not registered to vote who proffered provisional ballots hoping to affect the outcome of the election.

Another 36% were ballots rejected because they voted in the wrong district or county (14,400 ballots rejected).

In a close election, those are significant figures. To claim that voter fraud is not an issue or that it is a minor one takes away from the objective fact that people are trying to engage in voter fraud and hope they aren't caught. Ohio can claim that the process worked and that these ballots were not counted because the provisional ballots were checked against their records.

Snoopers Out of Jobs

Helen Jones-Kelley, the head of the Ohio agency that snooped in Ohio computer records searching for dirt on Joe the Plumber has resigned after going on unpaid leave for a month. Two other managers were fired.

Two senior managers suspended for their roles in the scandal that spiced this year's presidential campaign also are leaving, The Dispatch has learned. The administration fired Doug Thompson, deputy director of child support. Fred Williams, assistant agency director, resigned effective Jan. 31.

The action came soon after the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a measure cracking down on state workers who improperly conduct checks involving Ohioans' personal information.

Republicans complained that Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, who promised to set a high ethical standard as governor, was letting Jones-Kelley off too lightly. Now, Strickland must decide whether to sign the bill, which Republicans say is a step toward restoring Ohioans' trust in government.

"The institution of state government and the trust is paramount and stands above any of us, and I think she made the right decision," House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said.

Both Strickland and Jones-Kelley rejected calls for her dismissal last month after a report by Inspector General Thomas P. Charles found that the database checks that Jones-Kelley approved on Toledo-area resident Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were for no legitimate government purpose.

I'd call that a good start. She and the other people who used the computer records to search for dirt broke Ohio law and violated the public trust.

There are still other Ohio officials who used the computer systems to check Joe's records, and their status is still up in the air. I'd like to see criminal prosecutions go forward against these people because they not only violated the public trust, but actively engaged in a chilling of dissent and free speech by their conduct. The mere act of asking questions was sufficient to get these people to abuse their positions and run computer searches to try and dig up dirt on Wurzelbacher.

In fact, the media did much of the same - finding out more details about Wurzelbacher than they have done on Obama's relationships with Tony Rezko and Ron Blagojevich.

Yet, Jones-Kelley thinks that this now eliminates a political distraction from pressing state business. Maybe she should have thought of that before using her political position to further the partisan political agenda of her chosen candidate when he was outed as nothing more than a redistributionist tax and spend Democrat by a guy on the street who merely asked questions that the media steadfastly refused to do throughout Obama's coronation.

You Don't Say: Joe the Plumbers Records Searched Improperly

Well, this should surprise absolutely no one, even the most partisan Obama supporters. What the Ohio politicians did to Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, was nothing short of criminal.

Even Governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat, has been forced to take action in the matter, suspending Helen Jones-Kelley for her running searches on Joe and claiming that they were part of some official government policy, although what she did is not only a firing offense, but criminal:

Strickland announced today that Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Department of Job and Family Services, will be placed on unpaid leave for one month in response to an inspector general's investigation.

The investigation found Jones-Kelley had no legitimate reasons to check on Toledo-area resident Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who was popularized as "Joe the Plumber" by Republican presidential candidate John McCain. It also confirmed she improperly used her state e-mail account to raise campaign money for President-elect Barack Obama.

Some Republican leaders, who cited the report's findings to call on Democrat Strickland to fire Jones-Kelley, were stunned that she will remain on the job.

"The actions described in this report cross the line of what you can do and lead a state agency. She violated the public trust," said House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering.

"The governor's lack of firm action here sends a message he is going to be tolerant of a state government that acts in inappropriate ways. He promised a higher standard and this is a lower standard."

Jones-Kelley was far from alone in running computer searches on Joe, as several other agencies were involved, but no one did so from as high a position as Jones-Kelley.

The inspector general's report found that the e-mails violated Strickland's policy on political activity and constituted a "wrongful act" as an inappropriate use of state resources.

The report also faulted other agency employees for their role in the computer checks on Wurzelbacher.

The report found that assistant agency director Fred Williams and Doug Thompson, a deputy child-support director, bore some responsibility for the checks run the day after the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

"Thompson's conduct is further called into question" by his directing a Job and Family Services employee to send a "deceptive" e-mail to another agency official explaining that the check she ran on Wurzelbacher was for child-support purposes.

Ohio Suspends Helen Jones-Kelley For Her Actions

Well, this is actually a belated surprise. Helen Jones-Kelley, who authorized searches into Joe Wurzelbacher's records in Ohio databases, has been suspended from her job as investigators continue looking into her actions. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland finally got around to suspending her.

Ohio Job & Family Services director Helen Jones-Kelley, a supporter of President-elect Barack Obama, was suspended after a check of state computers and state e-mail found connections to political fundraising, which is not allowed on state property.

The fundraising activity related to Obama's campaign, to which Jones-Kelley contributed $2,500.

"Today, I have decided to place Ohio Department of Job and Family Services Director Helen Jones-Kelley on paid administrative leave due to the possibility, as yet unconfirmed, that a state computer or state e-mail account was used to assist in political fundraising," Gov. Ted Strickland said in a statement.

Jones-Kelley was already under investigation by the state inspector general's office for authorizing a personal records search on Joseph Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber.

"I have asked Inspector General Tom Charles to include this matter in his current, ongoing investigation," Strickland said. "Also, I have asked Cabinet Secretary Jan Allen to serve as acting director of the agency."

She gave the asinine answer that such searches of famous people were routinely conducted when Wurzelbacher became a household name as Joe the Plumber after he asked Barack Obama about his economic policy and Obama replied with the now infamous comments on redistribution of wealth.

There was no legitimate reason for her, or anyone else, to conduct those searches. There are specific guidelines to carry out database searches, and they're specifically designed to prevent partisan abuse, which is precisely what Jones-Kelley engaged in. She had her subordinates carry out searches, despite the fact there is no policy to do so.

Suspension is only a good start. Criminal sanctions should be forthcoming as well.

The Dead Keep on Voting

The nexus for the Army of Darkness (aka the legion of dead voters)? Ohio, of course.

Among the thousands of graves at Highland Park Cemetery, one modest tombstone stands out.

Alex Holmes Sr. has been at rest in that cemetery for 15 years. But recent election records show he cast a ballot in this year's primary.

And our 5 On Your Side investigation found a home on Cleveland's east side listed as Holmes' address.

Jeremy Moore, Holmes' grandson, was stunned.

"He's deceased. Deceased since 1993," Moore said.

And it doesn't appear to be a name mix-up.

Records reveal Alex Holmes Jr. -- who is still alive -- voted in the same election as his deceased father.

Cuyahoga County Elections Director Jane Platten said she'll look in to it.

"Without having full detail, I have no idea why that would have happened," Platten said.

Oh, I have a real good idea. The board of elections at the state and local levels around the country aren't doing their job of clearing the voter rolls of deceased voters, felons, and others who are ineligible to cast ballots.

The Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has done a disastrous job of handling the state elections and doesn't think it important to ensure that the voter rolls are accurate and culled of deceased voters. She issued a directive to Boards of Elections across the state to withhold dates of births in public records requests. That information is important in positively identifying dead voters. Instead, we get a situation where the dead vote. Often.

Thousands of dead voters remain on voter rolls in Memphis, and there are actual signs that at least 12 votes were cast by the dearly departed, though the efforts to clear the rolls have uncovered far more serious problems, including multiple registrations.

The names of Deaton and the others appeared despite reforms undertaken following a 2005 special state Senate election in which corrupt Memphis poll workers used the identities of dead voters to sway the outcome of an especially tight race. The reforms were aimed at ensuring deceased individuals are removed from voter rolls.

Yet inadequate purging of dead voters isn't the only concern facing the county's bulging, 645,000-name voter roll. A computer analysis by The Commercial Appeal and Scripps Howard News Service also found:

As many as 1,681 voters appeared to have more than one registration on file with the Shelby County Election Commission. Such dual registrations create the potential for fraud. Records show a handful of voters may have as many as three registrations on file.

Electronic records hint that as many as 12 dead people voted in the 2004 general election, although that finding is believed to involve clerical errors and not actual fraud.

The dead vote far more often than the New York Times or Washington Post would ever care to admit (and even then, they'll refuse to call it fraud. And every one of these votes undermines the legitimate votes cast in those districts because it effectively nullifies a legitimate vote.

How many of these deceased votes have been cast this year? Far more than ever should be allowed, and in a close election and in certain districts, it could be a decisive vote.

The Ohio Obama Plumbers; The Plot Thickens

As bad as the crime was, the coverup is invariably always worse. Ohio's Director of Job and Family Services, Helen Jones-Kelley, is making a bad situation worse. It's turning into a full blown criminal coverup of epic proportions.

Someone lied to the state employee who ran the search on Joe Wurzelbacher, and then was told to keep the matter quiet and the reasoning changed for the search after the fact.

Vanessa Niekamp said that when she was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case.

Niekamp didn't know she just had checked on "Joe the Plumber," who was elevated the night before to presidential politics prominence as Republican John McCain's example in a debate of an average American.

The senior manager would not learn about "Joe" for another week, when she said her boss informed her and directed her to write an e-mail stating her computer check was a legitimate inquiry.

The reason Niekamp said she was given for checking if there was a child-support case on Wurzelbacher does not match the reason given by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Director Helen Jones-Kelley said her agency checks people who are "thrust into the public spotlight," amid suggestions they may have come into money, to see if they owe support or are receiving undeserved public assistance.

The Director is lying to cover her ass. She knows that employees are fired for illegally accessing the computer records. So does Niekamp, and Niekamp has fired employees who have engaged in illegally accessing computer records. There's absolutely no reason that anyone should have checked Joe's computerized records in this instance, and most certainly he did not inquire about his own status to generate searches of a multitude of state records.

Kelley abused her position to have her subordinates engage in a fishing expedition to dig up dirt on Joe the Plumber, whose sole transgression was having the audacity to ask Sen. Barack Obama a question about his economic policy. It was an innocuous question, but Obama's response was most illuminating as to Obama's true intent - the redistribution of wealth.

Niekamp was tricked into running the searches, and those who told her to run the searches must be held accountable. They must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They abused their power, and used the computerized searches to engage in a partisan attack on someone who they believed was a threat to someone who they sought to elevate to the Office of the President.

Hot Air also notices the coverup in Ohio and the partisan politicians at the state's highest level are attempting to bury the story even as the criminality of those involved becomes all too clear.

UPDATE:
The media is ignoring the story. Other than the Columbus Dispatch, the media isn't looking into the story in any way, shape or form. The NYT doesn't even have anything on it. MSNBC? Nada.

They simply aren't interested in a scandal of what's growing into epic proportions - because of the coverup no less. It's sad. You have government officials abusing their power and obstructing justice with lying about their intentions to run database searches for purely partisan reasons. Where is the accountability?

UPDATE:
Wurzelbacher says that he doesn't have a child support case. Jones-Kelley's excuses keep changing, and it doesn't make it any better. There was nothing routine about running his name through the databases, and there most certainly wasn't a "public spotlight search protocol" in place.

Obama's Ohio Plumbers Far More Insidious Than Previously Acknowledged

Big Brother is watching if you get out of line and question the absolute moral authority associated with the Obama campaign. This shouldn't be surprising at all.

A state agency has revealed that its checks of computer systems for potential information on "Joe the Plumber" were more extensive than it first acknowledged.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.

The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.

Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher.

Harris called the multiple records checks "questionable" and said he awaits more answers. "It's kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket," he said.

If state employees run checks on every person listed in newspaper stories as buying a business, "it must take a lot of people a lot of time to run these checks," he said. "Where do you draw the line?"

The situation at the state level in Ohio is an absolute partisan nightmare, and that state officials sanctioned the unauthorized access of computer databases to drum up any kind of dirt on Joe Wurzelbacher is absolutely criminal.

That no one in the state's Attorney General's office is going to prosecute these people to the fullest extent of the law is itself a dereliction of duty and a responsibility to the people of Ohio.

At a minimum, the Ohio governor should be demanding Helen Jones-Kelley's resignation or fire her for her actions immediately. There is no excuse for her actions, except that she thought it in the best interests of her chosen presidential preference, Sen. Barack Obama to see if there was any dirt on Wurzelbacher to attack him after he simply asked Obama a question on Obama's economic policy.

Obama's answers should be so thoroughly examined; instead, the media and the Obama partisans decided that the real issue was the guy who simply asked the candidate a question. This is an absolute chilling of free speech as Kelley's abusing her position of power for purely partisan purposes. There was absolutely no legitimate reason for her, or anyone else, to conduct state computer database searches on Wurzelbacher. None. She's admitted that her agency's searches were far more invasive than previously acknowledged, which was bad enough.

If only the media did as much work on the Obama campaign as they've done with Wurzelbacher.

Obama's Plumbers

Forget Joe the Plumber, for this is far more chilling. The moment that the Joe the Plumber video exposed Sen. Barack Obama to the world for his socialist views and redistributive change, his supporters began digging for the dirt.

Ohio's Helen Jones-Kelley, Director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, confirmed that she approved a database search on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher following the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

Kelley said there were no political reasons for the check on the sudden presidential campaign fixture though the Support Enforcement Tracking System.

There was absolutely no reason to check on Wurzelbacher other than the fact that he asked Sen. Obama questions that resulted in highly uncomfortable answers. Ohio's Inspector General is now investigating this and several other unauthorized database searches into Wurzelbacher's Ohio records.

Should it surprise anyone that Kelley is a maximum Obama donor, having given $2,300?

This is what happens when people use their positions of power to chill dissent. Kelley abused her position of power to run a search hoping to dig up uncomfortable facts that might undermine the credibility of someone who simply asked a question of Sen. Obama as he was campaigning in the neighborhood going door to door. I hope that the book gets thrown at Kelley and others who abused their power to investigate Wurzelbacher.

Computer databases at other state agencies were also accessed, including apparently by a contractor for the Ohio Department of Insurance. Investigators are also looking at why driver's license and vehicle registration information on "Joe" was pulled from Bureau of Motor Vehicles computers. That information was pulled from accounts assigned to the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

The Obama campaign, of course, claims ignorance and says that they support an investigation. Why get your hands dirty when you have locals who are more than willing to do that dirty work for them.

UPDATE:
Hot Air is also covering the Ohio mess, and how the state officials are busy covering for each other, even as they admit that there was repeated unauthorized access of databases to find information on Wurzelbacher.

Don't expect the champions of privacy, the ACLU to come to Joe's aid. Michelle Malkin has more on that aspect (and more here).

The 2008 Election Fiasco Is Now Assured

The 2008 election fiasco is now assured as Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has made it abundantly clear that no provisional ballots will be rejected. There will be no review of provisional ballots to determine whether those casting such ballots are legitimately entitled to vote.

Elections officials cannot challenge voters on Election Day or reject absentee ballots based solely on discrepancies from verifying new voter registrations, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said yesterday in directives to counties.

It's the latest development from the controversy about what should be done when personal information from new voters doesn't match state motor vehicle or federal Social Security records in an automatic computer check.

The Ohio Republican Party had sued Brunner to force her to provide lists of voters with mismatches to counties as a way to correct registration errors and weed out any fraud.

Although the GOP did not prevail in court, Brunner issued the directives because counties have access to mismatches by examining individual voter records.

Ohio law no longer allows challengers at the polls, but poll workers have the power to question a voter's eligibility. One of Brunner's directives says voters may not be challenged based solely on mismatch data.

The other directive says county elections workers cannot uses mismatches as the basis for not counting an absentee ballot.

An estimated 200,000 of the nearly 786,000 new registrations in Ohio this year have mismatches, Brunner's office has said.

Meanwhile, a Wisconsin judge tossed a suit there by the Wisconsin Attorney General to force compliance with the federal HAVA. The grounds on which the Wisconsin suit was tossed? The Wisconsin Attorney General lacked the standing to sue under HAVA. That's precisely how the US Supreme Court ruled on the Ohio case when it came up last week.

UPDATE:
As if that wasn't enough, the Obama campaign website doesn't seem to bother with standard credit card verification procedures to ensure that fraud and possible criminality doesn't occur. Hot Air, Ace, Flip, and others are now reporting that the Obama website is accepting credit card campaign contributions without any kind of security verification that the information submitted matches the card holder information on record with the credit card companies. Credit card companies generally require address verification to see whether possible fraud is underway. If the records provided don't match the information submitted, the transaction gets bounced. If enough transactions from a vendor get bounced, the credit card companies usually raise the fees or cancel the vendor's accounts altogether.

The situation as it appears to exist right now is ripe for fraud, abuse, and circumvention of the campaign finance laws and limits on donations.

If the cardholder in question doesn't question the charges, the credit card company isn't going to bother delving in to the transaction. The Obama campaign simply is playing with fire to accept as many donations from as many sources as possible, without regard to the law or even common sense. It also opens the door to foreign sources providing donations without any trouble.

After all, if Adolph Hitler, John Galt, and Mickey Mouse can give campaign contributions, who is anyone to argue? Heck, even the New York Times was picking out the Obama campaign for this problem weeks ago.

Meanwhile, the fraudsters in Ohio will not be prosecuted. Instead, two registrations will be canceled and 11 absentee ballots wont be counted. How exactly is that justice? These individuals sought to commit fraud and undermine the electoral system, and they don't even get a slap on the wrist. Something is seriously wrong with the water in Ohio.

UPDATE:
Patrick Ruffini weighs in and concludes this is clearly enabling fraud. The campaign clearly was on notice that their systems were set up to enable fraudulent donations to come flooding in, and did nothing about it. Will the Justice Department and the FEC get on the case?

Ohio GOP Files New Suit Against Ohio Sec. State. Brunner

The Ohio GOP has filed a new suit against Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, to compel compliance with state election law mandating the state share database information with local election boards to determine eligibility of voter registrants. This comes one day after the US Supreme Court reversed a federal court decision on grounds that the Ohio GOP lacked standing to address the issue:

Specifically, the lawsuit asks the Ohio Supreme Court to require Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to order county elections boards not to count any absentee ballot from voters registered after Jan. 1 without first checking the statewide voter registration database to ensure there is no mismatch.

If there is a mismatch, the boards would be required to determine whether the person is an eligible voter.

"This action seeks this (Ohio Supreme Court's) urgent intervention to remedy the secretary of state's steadfast refusal to fully implement the Statewide Voter Registration Database (SWVRD) in a manner required by both federal and state law -- in essence, to share 'mismatch' information regarding a registrant's driver's license or Social Security information with county boards of elections in a manner that gives those boards a meaningful opportunity to investigate the mismatches," the lawsuit says.

The court ordered that arguments by both sides must be filed by next Friday, only 10 days before the Nov. 4 election.

Brunner Appeals Voter Registration Checks To Supreme Court

Democrat Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is a piece of work, and it's going to cost Ohio dearly. She's refusing to carry out state and federal law requiring that she check voter registrations to ensure that they're accurate. Instead, she's appealing the Sixth Circuit's decision requiring that she comply with state law and taking the case to the US Supreme Court.

A spokesman for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said Thursday that an appeal has been filed with the high court.

On Tuesday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati sided with the Ohio Republican Party and ordered Brunner to set up a system that provides names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers don't match records in other government databases.

The GOP contends the information will help prevent fraud.

She's already admitted that there are more than 200,000 mismatched registrations, and given how ACORN has flooded the zone with bogus registrations across the country, there's no telling just how many of the Ohio registrations are legitimate and which ones are bogus.

It opens the door to all kinds of chicanery. Consider the situation in New Jersey. The last day to register was Tuesday. Election boards across the state are swamped and some think that they might not be able to process all the registrations in time for election day. This ordinarily isn't a problem because such individuals would be able to obtain provisional ballots.

The problem arises because you're going to get people who demand to cast ballots directly into the machines without having the verifications. They will get a judge to agree to let them vote.

Voters whose names do not appear in the books are entitled to use paper provisional ballots. The provisional ballots are counted after officials verify the voters are registered.

Voters can also go to a judge on duty in each county on Election Day to ask for an order that would allow them vote on a machine. Lawyers from the state, political parties and the American Civil Liberties Union will be on hand to help resolve disputes over whether people are registered.

In many counties, some new voters’ forms will not be processed in time to get them in the main books, but they will be included in supplemental listings. County officials will be able to confirm they are registered through these listings and allow them to vote in the booth.

I suspect that this process is similar to what happens around the country, and it opens the door to fraud and abuse.

The Brunner Situation

I don't think people quite understand the seriousness of the Brunner situation. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, has been forced by the Sixth Circuit to do her job and cull the voter rolls of discrepancies.

She had claimed that doing so would violate the law and disenfranchise people. That's total nonsense since the only people disenfranchised by such actions would be those trying to vote fraudulently, dead people, or felons. Legitimate voters have nothing to worry about and clearing the rolls of the fraudulent registrations protects our right to vote and ensure that the results are not gamed by those who seek an outcome.

She had claimed that there wasn't enough time to act to clear the rolls. That she sat on this huge stinking pile for so long and fought with Republicans to do her job means that there's little time to verify the legitimate voters from those bogus registrations.

How many are we talking about?

200,000 registrations.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner estimated that an initial review found that about 200,000 newly registered voters reported information that did not match motor-vehicle or Social Security records, Brunner spokesman Kevin Kidder said. Some discrepancies could be as simple as a misspelling, while others could be more significant.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati sided with the Ohio Republican Party on Tuesday and ordered Brunner to set up a system that provides those names to county elections boards. The GOP contends the information will help prevent fraud.

"Things already are in motion to comply," Kidder said. "We're working to establish these processes on how we can make this work. The computer work actually began last week."

About 666,000 Ohioans have registered to vote since January.

Brunner previously cross-checked new-voter registrations with databases run by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle and the Social Security Administration and made the results available online, but the 6th Circuit said the information was not accessible in a way that would help county election boards ferret out mismatches.

Nearly 1/3 of all registrations submitted have some kind of problem. How exactly does that work?

Those discrepancies could be anything from misspelled names to failing to provide change of address forms to outright fraud and misrepresentation of information on registration information to get a chance to vote multiple times.

We just don't know how many fall into each column.

Brunner was never going to let anyone find out.

She was jeopardizing the trust in the system to count the legitimate votes and prevent those who should not be voting from being able to cast ballots.

No one would be disenfranchised by any of this. People who are not found to be on voter rolls would still be able to cast provisional ballots, and those votes would be counted once they are verified.

Ace weighs in and goes postal on Brunner for her incompetence and facilitation of voter fraud by not clearing voter rolls of those who do not belong. He also points out that Michelle Malkin has uncovered a website dedicated to facilitating election fraud by getting Obama supporters in contact with each other to register in swing states and providing addresses (sometimes 50 in one house) so that they can cast absentee ballots.

Law enforcement has been slow to react to this criminal enterprise as well.

Allahpundit also weighs in. How many of the mismatched registrations are ACORN related?

ACORN's Voter Registration Scam Endangers Your Right To Vote

ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a radical leftist group that claims to want affordable housing for all, but is fully involved in getting out the vote, getting out the vote illegally that is.

Barkley estimated he'd registered to vote "10 to 15" times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others.

Claims such as his have sparked election officials to probe ACORN.

"I kept getting approached by folks who asked me to register," Barkley said. "They'd ask me if I was registered. I'd say yes, and they'd ask me to do it [register] again.

"Some of them were getting paid to collect names. That was their sob story, and I bought it," he said.

Barkley is one of at least three people who have been subpoenaed by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections as part of a wider inquiry into possible voter fraud by ACORN. The group seeks to register low-income voters, who skew overwhelmingly Democratic.

"You can tell them you're registered as many times as you want - they do not care," said Lateala Goins, 21, who was subpoenaed.

"They will follow you to the buses, they will follow you home, it does not matter," she told The Post.

She added that she never put down an address on any of the registration forms, just her name.

A third subpoenaed voter, Freddie Johnson, 19, filled out registration cards 72 times over 18 months, officials said.

For those who aren't paying attention, those three folks are located in the swing state of Ohio.

Guess who else has ties to ACORN.

Yup. You guessed it, none other than the community organizer himself, Sen. Barack Obama. His campaign has given $800,000 to ACORN, despite knowing that ACORN has a long history of engaging in voter fraud.

Keep that in mind when you hear the New York Times says that there isn't voter fraud.

Acorn is under investigation in multiple jurisdictions. They're being investigated in Nevada where a fraud investigation is underway, including Las Vegas (where they claim no wrongdoing).

Further, investigations are open in Connecticut, Missouri, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana. In all, ACORN is being investigated in 15 states. Keep that in mind when you read the media reports claiming that there isn't voter fraud or that states are taking away your right to vote by trying to clear the rolls of bogus registrations.

As I've previously noted, ACORN's role in the subprime meltdown is significant since they helped pressure banks into lending to those individuals who had no capacity to repay. This organization engages in rampant election fraud on a systemic basis to further its political objectives.

About Time

Someone finally got around to asking Barack Obama some tough questions yesterday about his campaign, his relation to Tony Rezko, and the ballooning mess of his own making over comments made about NAFTA and his campaign's contacts with the Canadian government.

It took months before these questions were finally raised.

Of course, Obama tried to scurry away after just eight questions.

The day before primaries in Ohio and Texas that could effectively seal the Democratic presidential nomination for him, a smiling Obama strode out to a news conference at a veterans facility here. But the grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog.

Reporters from the Associated Press and Reuters went after him for his false denial that a campaign aide had held a secret meeting with Canadian officials over Obama's trade policy. A trio of Chicago reporters pummeled him with questions about the corruption trial this week of a friend and supporter. The New York Post piled on with a question about him losing the Jewish vote.

Obama responded with the classic phrases of a politician in trouble. "That was the information that I had at the time. . . . Those charges are completely unrelated to me. . . . I have said that that was a mistake. . . . The fact pattern remains unchanged."

When those failed, Obama tried another approach. "We're running late," the candidate said, and then he disappeared behind a curtain.

Before he beat his hasty retreat, however, Obama found time to assign blame for the tough questions suddenly coming his way. "The Clinton campaign has been true to its word in employing a 'kitchen sink' strategy," he protested. "There are, what, three or four things a day?"

Flyweight, he is.

His NAFTA-Canada mess should surely raise serious red flags over his competence, but for the fact that the Tony Rezko trial should have done that far earlier. His campaign is bending itself into pretzels to try and avoid what should be self-evident - that he and his campaign lied about what it did or did not do.

The NAFTA mess is of his own doing. Captain Ed sums things up thusly:

The pattern of deception seems rather clear. At each step, the campaign denied what it thought could not be proven. At each step, they have been forced to backtrack and re-make the message. No, we never had contact became Well, we had contact but didn’t discuss NAFTA. That shortly became We discussed NAFTA but they misunderstood us, closely followed by Goolsbee wasn’t representing the campaign, he was representing the university.

Does anyone believe this at all? Why would Goolsbee represent the university at the Canadian consulate? What business did the University of Chicago have with the Canadian diplomatic corps — and if they did, why was Goolsbee discussing the Obama campaign during the entire visit?

Goolsbee had an obvious mission with the Canadians: to reassure them that Obama wouldn’t throw NAFTA on the ashheap. Team Obama thought they could keep this mission quiet while Obama tried stirring up populist passion in Ohio by telling people how much he disliked the trade treaty and how he would demand it be renegotiated.

This is what happens when you have a protectionist demagogue like Obama who needs to win votes in a border state who makes statements about trashing NAFTA, which was passed with bipartisan support in Congress, and the Canadian government seeking to have assurances that the agreement will remain in place. Obama has to lie to someone - and he's clearly trying to get voters to believe that he's going to change NAFTA, while trying to convince Canada that things will remain the same. In other words, he had to lie to everyone. And this is what happens when you get caught.

UPDATE:
Here's video of the encounter with the press:



Eight questions.