On the Tavis Smiley Show (NPR) Puppetician Blackwell had the following conversation with Tavis:
- 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.
- 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. The African-American vote more than doubled 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. [more]