GOP blasts Obama comment on voting machines
Democrat Barack Obama drew a sharp Republican response yesterday to his response to a question about "stolen" elections.
"I would just like to know what you can say to reassure us that this election will not be rigged or stolen?" a woman asked Obama at an economic forum at Kent State University's Tuscarawas campus in New Philadelphia.
"Well, I tell you what, it helps in Ohio that we've got Democrats in charge of the machines," Obama replied. It was a reference to accusations from the 2004 election in Ohio that heavily Democratic or minority precincts received fewer voting machines than more affluent, Republican suburbs under Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.
Democrat Jennifer Brunner is now the state's chief election officer. But county boards of elections -- not Brunner or Blackwell when he held the office -- make the decisions about how machines are allocated.
Still, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Robert Bennett issued a statement saying Obama's comment "basically amounted to an endorsement of vote-rigging."
"That may be how you win elections back in Chicago, but Ohioans tend to frown upon the idea of massive voter fraud, especially when it's floated by a presidential candidate," Bennett said. "Jennifer Brunner's meddling with Ohio's elections system and her firing of elections officials for political reasons has been disturbing enough, but it now seems the Obama-Brunner team are openly wearing the same partisan jersey. Ohioans will not stand for this blatant disregard for the integrity of our elections system."
