Blog posts
Election Integrity: Use of Media to Influence Elections by Janet Maker
This fourteenth blog in our Election Integrity series examines the use of media to influence elections.
read moreElection Integrity: Campaign Finance in the United States by Janet Maker
This thirteenth blog in our election integrity series examines the role of campaign finance.
read moreElection Integrity: What happened in 2008 and 2012 by Janet Maker
Some people would like to interpret Obama’s wins in 2008 and 2012 as evidence that the U.S. election system isn’t really rigged. Unfortunately, it appears that the same shenanigans that were used in 2000 and 2004 were very much in play in the later elections.
read moreElection Integrity: Ken Blackwell and the Ohio 2004 Election, Part III by Janet Maker
There is evidence that Blackwell’s tactics preceding and during the election disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters and by themselves were enough to swing the 2004 election from Kerry to Bush. But Blackwell’s most outrageous coup against democracy was privatizing the vote count and recount.
read moreElection Integrity: Ken Blackwell and the Ohio 2004 Election, Part II by Janet Maker
This is the tenth blog in our election integrity series. Last month’s blog about Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell’s role in rigging the 2004 election focused on the tactics used to prevent potential Democrats from registering and, of those already registered, getting as many as possible off the rolls by purging and caging. This month we will focus on techniques that were used to prevent successfully registered voters from casting a ballot or from having their ballot count. Next month’s blog will focus on post-election tactics: fraud and irregularities in the count and recount, and violations of federal law by destroying election records. The person in charge of all these tactics in Oho was Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell
read moreElection Integrity: Ken Blackwell and the Ohio 2004 Election, Part I by Janet Maker
Just as Florida had decided the 2000 election, Ohio with its 20 electoral votes was the state that decided the election for George W. Bush in 2004. John Kenneth “Ken” Blackwell was Secretary of State of Ohio from 1999 to 2007 and, just as Secretary of State Katherine Harris had also been a co-chair of the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign in Florida, Blackwell was also co-chair of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio. As secretary of state, Blackwell had the power to interpret and implement state and federal election laws, setting standards for everything from registration to recounts. Every significant decision he made about the election benefited George W. Bush.
read moreElection Integrity: Katherine Harris and the Florida 2000 Election by Janet Maker
Katherine Harris, a right-wing Christian extremist and minor Republican officeholder with ethical challenges, had the power to change the course of history. The interventions she made in stopping the Florida recount, in enabling the voter purge, and in extending the deadline for absentee ballots, enabled George W. Bush, loser of the popular vote, to become president.
read moreElection Integrity: Vendors of Voting Equipment by Janet Maker
After a series of business failures, mergers and acquisitions, there remain currently only three major players in the voting equipment industry. Dominion Voting Systems Corporation, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), and Hart InterCivic control about 92% of the market. ES&S is the largest, with 44%. Dominion has 37%, and Hart InterCivic has 11%. All three companies are privately held and do not disclose their financial information, and all three have known or suspected ties to the political and religious right wing.
read moreElection Integrity: Problems with Black Box Voting by Janet Maker
Protecting our elections is not very difficult. However, there are two reasons why the necessary protections have not been put in place. The first is that voting machines are owned by private companies and have proprietary software. Most will not allow access to the source code, so we have no way to verify that the machines are not rigged. The second problem is that for the most part, election administrators have failed to adopt the recommendations that would make elections safer. There have never been consistent, mandatory security standards governing the operation of computerized voting, so vendors have had a relatively free hand selling their flawed products.
read moreElection Integrity: Voter Suppression in Alabama’s 2017 Special Election, by Janet Maker
While the election does prove that it’s not impossible for Democrats to win, the playing field is not level. On a level playing field, both parties have an equal chance of obtaining a majority of the vote. On a playing field that’s rigged by voter suppression and black box voting machines, Democrats might require 10 or 15 percent more voters in order to win a simple majority.
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