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Fair Elections in Ohio

In 2006 I pushed hard to elect Jennifer Brunner as secretary of state for Ohio. Luckily we won that hotly contested race, replacing a corrupt Republican secretary of state with an honest Democrat. This means our chances for fair elections in Ohio in 2008 are looking good.

Jennifer Brunner has done such a good job cleaning up the messed up Ohio election system that she has actually won an award. From the Springfield News-Sun:

Brunner to be honored for her political courage

Study of Ohio's election system earns Secretary of State prestigious award.
By Bridgette Outten
Staff Writer

Monday, April 21, 2008

COLUMBUS -- Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner kept her campaign promise to review Ohio's election system, a challenge that earned her a place among the 2008 recipients of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.

Brunner is being honored for her "political courage by a distinguished bipartisan committee of national, political, and community leaders," according to a statement from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation...

"I was stunned" upon learning of the award, Brunner said. "I had not applied for it."

Even more stunning was the personal call that came from Caroline Kennedy, president of the JFK Library Foundation, offering congratulations, Brunner added.

Brunner's decision to review the system amidst "quite a bit of furor" was based on ensuring accuracy and reliability of the state voting system, not receiving accolades, she said.

"When a person is in public service, they do what they do because it's the right thing," she said.

The $1.9 million study found vulnerabilities in the system that could reportedly compromise the validity of results.

The review reflects the simple creed Brunner's parents taught her: "Be honest and work hard."

Here is Jennifer Brunner explaining the report:

This is one of the best things we accomplished in 2006. If you want to help re-elect Jennifer Brunner, you can contribute here.

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Words to live by

"There has never been a just one, never an honorable one - on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war. The pulpit will - warily and cautiously - object - at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and here is no necessity for it."

Then the handful will shout louder.

A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you willsee this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers - as earlier - but do not dare to say so.

And now the whole nation - pulpit and all - will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

— Mark Twain, Heroic American Writer
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