National Public Radio (NPR) December 16, 2004
Copyright 2004 National Public Radio (R)
J. Kenneth Blackwell and Melissa Harris-Lacewell discuss Ohio's voting woes
TAVIS SMILEY, host:
From NPR in Los Angeles, I'm Tavis Smiley.
On
today's program, we find out that it's not simply a question of what
you eat, but health is a matter of where you live. PolicyLink's Angela
Blackwell joins us to explain. Also, our regular commentator Michael
Eric Dyson on the vilification of Martin Luther King Jr. in life and
his idolization in death. The discrepancy, he contends, says a lot
about liberal notions in America. And finally the legacy of Jack
Johnson--America's first black heavyweight boxing champion.
But
first, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. The election of 2004 is over--at least they
tell us it's over--yet numerous questions continue to swirl around the
conduct of the vote in the Buckeye State, which has replaced Florida in
recent weeks as the operative metaphor for voter dissent and
discontent. Hearings have been held, demonstrations mounted and
petitions filed by citizens who believe that something went terribly
wrong in Ohio on November 2nd. And on Wednesday, Democratic Congressman
John Conyers of Michigan called for federal and state investigations
into what he calls inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering
in one or more Ohio counties. Congressman Conyers says the alleged
tampering was systematic.
Representative
JOHN CONYERS Jr. (Democrat, Michigan): The refusals of cooperation from
the secretary of State of Ohio himself, Mr. Kenneth Blackwell, have
laid to rest the fact that this could be all fortuitous, unconnected,
innocent. We're talking, first of all, about thousands of complaints
about failure of process, coercion, suppression of the vote. The
country was so nervous about how the election was conducted in 2000
that we passed an additional federal law, Help America Vote Act. Now at
2004, we find out that our provisions in the federal law didn't go
nearly far enough. We still don't have paper trails. We still have
election officials acting in really irregular fashion.
SMILEY:
Congressman Conyers says that Ohio's secretary of State should not have
been allowed to hold dual positions, both as chair of the Bush-Cheney
committee and as the official responsible for certifying that state's
election. And speaking of the secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth
Blackwell, he joins me now.
Mr. Secretary, nice to talk to you again, sir.
Secretary J. KENNETH BLACKWELL (State Department, Ohio): Thanks for having me, Tavis.
SMILEY:
You heard the taped comments by Congressman Conyers, the senior
Democrat, that is, on the House Judiciary Committee. He's made some
serious charges here, both about how the election was conducted and
more specifically about your role in it. So is it possible that some
improprieties took place here?
Sec.
BLACKWELL: Tavis, my message to the good congressman is that Elvis is
dead, the Bambino jinx has ended, the 2004 election results are
conclusive, Bush won, turn out the lights, the election is over. We've
had over 34 suits that have been filed. We have won every one of them.
We have an enormous election operation in Ohio, 50,000 poll workers,
45,000 square miles of geography, 88 counties, and we had a record
number of 5.7 million voters, almost a million more voters than in
2000. We had a record voter registration drive that produced nearly a
million new registered voters. We had a great election in Ohio, and I
think what the congressman is expressing is a combination of partisan
rage and sour grapes.
SMILEY: Try to
explain, though, to this audience, at least I'm told, why there was a
disproportionate number of errors and mistakes that took place in
largely Democratic and black voting districts, according to observers.
Sec.
BLACKWELL: Well, that's an assertion, but let me give you an example.
Franklin County, one of our state's largest counties--that's where
Columbus, Ohio, is located--the Board of Elections has a chairman. That
chairman is a fellow by the name of William Anthony. William Anthony is
African-American. He is a Democrat. He's just not an
ordinary Democrat; he is the chairman of the Franklin County Democratic
Party. He, in fact, has said that it is outrageous that Congressman
Conyers and the Reverend Jesse Jackson would come into Ohio and claim
that he provided oversight to the stealing of an election for George
Bush. That's just how ridiculous this is.
We
have a system that is bipartisan. The bipartisan system protects the
integrity of the vote. Ohio had an election that was transparent and
its management was bipartisan and fair. The system's watchdogs are
representatives of the major parties. And so William Anthony was just
not the only example of Democrat leaders being embedded in a permanent
part of our system. Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located,
Timothy Burke is the chairman of the Hamilton County Board of
Elections. He's also the chairman of the Hamilton County Democrat
Party. That state...
SMILEY: All right.
Let me jump in. I get your point, Mr. Secretary. I get your point here.
Let me jump in and ask another question before my time with you runs
out.
Sec. BLACKWELL: Right.
SMILEY:
The number of voting booths that were allocated in the disputed
counties, I'm told, was based on the 2000 election turnout. The number
of voting booths allocated in the disputed counties based on the 2000
election turnout, not the 2004 registration. If that is true, that
would disproportionately affect those dense urban Democratic precincts
falling short of the number of booths they actually needed.
Sec.
BLACKWELL: The shortage of voting machines across the state of Ohio,
which resulted in long lines and long waits, was across the board, both
in Democrat areas and Republican areas. The voter registration effort
in the state of Ohio was just about even in terms of Democrats and
Republicans. Remember, we had an issue on the ballot which protected
the sanctity of marriage as a union between one man and one woman,
which got churches...
SMILEY: Right.
Sec.
BLACKWELL: ...out in big numbers in terms of registration drives. And
it's reflected in the fact that many Democrats came into our state
trying to keep the African-American vote for George Bush at about 8 percent, which was what it was in 2000.
SMILEY: Right.
Sec. BLACKWELL: The African-American vote more than doubled...
SMILEY: Let me...
Sec.
BLACKWELL: ...for George Bush in Ohio. So the notion that there was
selective reduction of voting machines in Ohio in Democrat areas is
just plain false.
SMILEY: All right. Let
me close with this and I'm out of time. When are you going to announce
that you're running for governor of Ohio, Mr. Secretary? And might this
controversy, small C, impact your chances to become the first African-American governor of that state?
Sec.
BLACKWELL: No, sir. As a matter of fact, I've already announced. There
was a statewide poll that was out and reported in the Cleveland Plain
Dealer on yesterday. I am the leading candidate in the Republican Party
for the nomination and I run statewide. I've been elected to statewide
office three times. I get 50 percent of the African-American vote. And
so for any Democrat who comes into the state thinking that I would want
to suppress the African-American vote when it is one of my competitive
advantages in a statewide general election is just foolish and full of
it.
SMILEY: Mr. Secretary, all the best to you. Happy holidays.
Sec. BLACKWELL: Well, in the words of your mom and mine, remember, Jesus is the reason for the season.
SMILEY: There you go.
Sec. BLACKWELL: Merry Christmas.
SMILEY: Thank you, sir.
Sec. BLACKWELL: All right.
SMILEY:
Up next on this program, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor at the
University of Chicago's Center for the Study of Race, Politics and
Culture. Professor Lacewell observed 10 Columbus, Ohio, precincts
during the November election.
Melissa, nice to have you on the program.
Professor MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL (University of Chicago): Thank you. It's very nice to be here.
SMILEY: What do you make of what Congressman Conyers is doing here? Is he on the right track?
Prof.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: Well, I mean, I certainly think that Congressman
Conyers is on the right track, although it's hard to fight for people
who aren't going to fight for themselves. So just as Al Gore gave up in
2000, Kerry has given up in 2004. So I don't think ultimately we can
dispute the election results themselves. I think the real question here
is whether or not democracy is working in this country, and the
elections in Ohio make it pretty clear that it's not.
SMILEY: What role has race placed in this process?
Prof.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: Oh, it's been enormous. When I was in Columbus, Ohio,
on Election Day, it was clear that the voter suppression was occurring
in vastly predominantly black districts, precincts, and urban
precincts. It was not happening in more rural, more Republican and more
white precincts.
SMILEY: How do you
respond to the notion that some have suggested that we have arrived at
a point in our nation's history, given the degree of political
polarization, that every important national election will be the
subject of suspicion, controversy and investigation by somebody?
Prof.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: Well, I don't think that the issue is about the
polarization of the electorate. I think the issue is about the fact
that we do not have transparent and tamper-proof electoral processes in
a country where we have, of course, enormous capacity to do things in
the medical field, to do things in terms of technology. We have the
technology to make elections inexpensive, transparent and tamper-proof
and we've just simply decided not to, and mostly we've decided not to
because, in fact, we've allowed elections to be controlled at the local
level. And if you're a local official and you have to make a decision
between police officers, schoolteachers and voting technology, you're
going to make a choice for police officers and schoolteachers, not for
voting technology. This ought to be a federal issue.
SMILEY: How, then, do we ever change that reality?
Prof.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: Well, I think we start pressing for federal election
law that says that rather than having 50 separate and unequal
elections, one in each state of this country, we instead have one
process, so that whether you vote in a rural area of Franklin County,
Ohio, or whether you vote in the center of Columbus, you've got the
same voting process. Whether you're voting in, you know, Nebraska or in
New York, it ought to be the same voting process. You ought to be
voting on the same kinds of machines. There ought to be the same rules
about registration. It ought to be transparent to everyone in this
country about how you vote. And we simply should not have a system
where it is harder, where it takes more sacrifice on the part of poor,
urban and African-American people to vote than it does for other citizens. That's deeply undemocratic.
SMILEY:
Let me ask you right quick here, then, since you've already suggested
that you realize, in fact, that all politics is local. It's one thing
for John Conyers at the national level to call for an investigation and
one thing for Jesse Jackson to fly into Ohio. But how are the folk on
the ground in Ohio looking at this issue? Are they over this?
Prof.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: No, I can't imagine that they are. I mean, I have to
tell you, I really learned on that day just what it meant to sacrifice
to vote. This is not something that's a 40-year-old issue. It wasn't
just a sacrifice to vote in 1965 or in 1968. It was a sacrifice to vote
in 2004. I watched young women with infants stand in the rain for three
hours. I watched obese men whose knees were bothering them stand in
pouring rain for three hours. I saw a woman who had been standing in
line for two and a half hours just start shaking and crying. And I said
to her, `What is going on?' And she says, `I'm a pastor's wife. We have
a funeral. I've got to leave. I've got to go do this funeral.'
SMILEY: Yeah.
Prof.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: `And yet I feel like it's my God-given responsibility
to stand here and to vote and I don't know what to do.'
SMILEY: Melissa...
Prof.
HARRIS-LACEWELL: And we simply should not have to make those kinds of
choices as voters. It ought to be an easy process to walk up and
exercise your constitutional basic civil right. No, I don't think these
voters are over it.
SMILEY: Melissa...
Prof. HARRIS-LACEWELL: I think these voters are mad as hell. And I think that they deserve...
SMILEY:
Melissa, I've got to cut you off. I hate to do this, but I had to cut
you off. Thank you for your insight. I appreciate it.
Prof. HARRIS-LACEWELL: All right.
SMILEY: I'm out of time and I apologize.
It's 19 minutes past the hour.