Blackwell Is At It Again

Ken Blackwell is back using weird interpretations of election laws to attempt to disenfranchise voters in the fall election. Under Blackwell's rules anyone collecting signatures could be guilty of a felony if they let a supervisor review the signatures before turning them in "directly" to either the Secretary of State's office or the local country board of election.

That's strange. Blackwell has now become a letter of the law guy. If you remember during his so called debate with Jim Petro at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, when Petro reminded Blackwell that his last failure the TEL literally said that school boards, etc. would not be able to pass levies, Blackwell replied something to the effect that it is not the intent of the law to do so.

Hmm, that sounds like Blackwell is more of an intent of the law man. Well, this is not the intent of the law. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

State Rep. Kevin DeWine, the legislator who sponsored the election-reform law, said he believes Blackwell's office faithfully drafted the rules to comply with the bill.

However, he said the law "might need a fix" because lawmakers didn't intend to subject registrars to criminal penalties if they turn their forms over to a supervisor for review instead of directly submitting them to the secretary of state.

If the drafter of the legislation says this isn't the intent of the law, perhaps Blackwell should follow the sponsors intention. Maybe Blackwell, like his very good buddy George Bush, is a decider. He decides when to follow the intent of the law, and when he's above it.

Do you want a governor that that will lead this state the way George Bush leads this country? I don't.

Side note: I got a kick out of Blackwell spokesman and former Boyz n Tha Hood extra Carlo Loparo quote in the article:

"before this campaign, [Strickland] his idea of diversity was opting for Neapolitan ice cream at the congressional buffet."

Yo Carlo, if you find yourself down in the Short Norf, holla, aight.