TALLY OF REJECTED PROVISIONAL BALLOTS, HAMILTON COUNTY, BY LOCATION

Cincinnati        3179
Harrison            60
Cleves              40
Loveland            34
North Bend           9
Miamitown            7
Terrace Park         5
Hamilton             4
Hooven               2
Addyston             1
Pisgah               1
Subtotal          3342
 
Not Completed      136
Rejected          3478
Total Counted    10507
Total Issued     13985


Note that of 3342 rejected provisional ballots on which the location was filled out, 3179, or 95.12%, were from Cincinnati.

In the 2004 presidential election, there were 408,238 votes counted for president in Hamilton County. Of these, 138,352 (33.89%) were in Cincinnati, where Kerry got 94,052 votes (67.98%), and Bush got 43,636 votes (31.54%). Elsewhere in Hamilton County, Bush got 172,003 (63.73%) votes, and Kerry got 96,904 votes (35.91%).

In two sentences:

Oh, those glitches!

For some reason we tolerate them a lot more in an election - that is to say, in the mechanics of democracy, something we affect to believe in so fervently we're willing to go to war to make sure other countries have it - than we would in, let's say, our banking system.

Last week's primary election fiasco here in Chicago and Cook County - a fiasco of such ballot-eating magnitude that the city and county, which each had separate deals with Sequoia Voting Systems, are withholding more than $30 million remaining on their respective contracts with that company - should have generated howls of outrage. Instead, the tone of the local coverage of the chaotic transition from punch cards to optical-scan and touch-screen voting struck me more as tepid bemusement.

The most unprincipled and opportunistic man in the history of Ohio, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, stands poised to claim the Republican primary for governor. Blackwell and his far-right theocratic “rapture-ready” Christian dominionists will doom the Buckeye State to further despair.

It should come as no surprise that the Free Press is the only newspaper in Ohio willing to out Blackwell for appearing before white supremacists in the secretive Council on National Policy. Blackwell understands power; he understands that there’s plenty of money in putting a black face on the new politics of high-tech Jim Crow. Blackwell also understands that in order for his strategy to succeed, he must convince a significant number of black ministers to join him in his open bigotry against gays and lesbians.

This is simply the old apartheid politics of divide and conquer. Blackwell wants to rule the new Buckeye State Bantustan.

It may seem as though it's been moving along at a snail's pace, but the second part of the federal investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson is nearly complete, with attorneys and government officials who have remained close to the probe saying that a grand jury will likely return an indictment against one or two senior Bush administration officials.

These sources work or worked at the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Council. Some of these sources are attorneys close to the case. They requested anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly about the details of the investigation.

In lengthy interviews over the weekend and on Monday, they said that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has started to prepare the paperwork to present to the grand jury seeking an indictment against White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove or National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Hollywood’s latest blockbuster V for Vendetta, another comic book adaptation, is the cause to commotion and ongoing discussions. Praised as an anti-authoritarian action film on the one hand, criticized for it’s recasting of current American politics on the other.

Originally a comic produced in the mid 1980s by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta is about a man who destroys the corrupt state he lives in, promoting Anarchy to the masses all the while.

Obviously, Hollywood twisted this core message so severely, that Alan Moore asked to be withdrawn from all media references and to have his name removed from the film's posters.

"One of the things I objected to in the recent film ... recasting it as current American neo-conservatism vs. current American liberalism. There wasn't a mention of anarchy as far as I could see."

Alan Moore started working on the novel around 1981, a time of severe political insecurity in Britain. Margret Thatcher had been in power for two years. There were riots all over the country and fascists groups, trying to make political capital out of what were fairly depressed and jobless times.