REFORM OHIO NOW SOME DAY, MAYBE?

Too Much Legalese! Did you actually read the ballot language, all of it. Did anyone really finish both pages of each issue?

Look, I'm a lawyer and I thought the amendments were way too wordy, especially for a Constitution.

With almost 1 million votes counted statewide, we're getting hammered. Next time remember the KISS method -- Keep It Simple Stupid.

STATEWIDE AT 9:50
2 No-64% Yes-35%
3 No-67% Yes-32%
4 No 70% Yes-29%
5 No 71% Yes-28%

Remember the anti-gay marriage Amendment last year. Two devastating sentences. That's all.

When you have to turn a page to read an amendment is doesn't stand a chance. The things read more like statutes, not guiding principles like a Constitution should have.

Rewriting them to only two or three clear, unambiguous sentences will level the playing field to the point where ads and further voter education will make a difference. These things didn't stand a chance no matter how fabulous the idea -- and they were.

And when we campaign, tell folks like Arnold "Thanks, but no thanks." He did more harm than good. We needed home grown talent, like John Glen who surely helped Issue One, but why wasn't he featured on any RON commercials? Where was Paul Hacket's face, Sherrod Brown? They needed to be FEATURED.

Remember, the republithugs will lie, and lie believably. Don't give them ammo like being able to take a grass roots, anti-establishment effort and paint is as some kind of out-of-state back room shenanigans.

And K.I.S.S.


CROSS-POSTED AT :
Swing State Project: Reform Ohio Now: Election Results

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UPDATE 11:30

It's official, and it's a shame, because if there ever was a State in desparate need of election reform, it's Ohio.

Voters reject election issues
11/8/2005, 10:18 p.m. ET
By ERICA RYAN
The Associated Press


COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Voters turned back four ballot proposals Tuesday to change Ohio election law, while a once-rejected high-tech research financing was comfortably ahead.

Issue 1 had 55 percent of the vote with 34 percent of the precincts reporting, according to unofficial returns compiled by The Associated Press. Backers combined the $500 million high-tech issue with a popular $1.5 billion highway maintenance bond issue after it lost two years ago.

The long statewide ballot issues confused some voters Tuesday in an off-year election with light turnout and few glitches from the use of new voting machines in about half of Ohio's 88 counties.

"I didn't understand a lot of them," said Cleveland voter Theo Bell, who skipped over the state questions. "I didn't want to put something down, not understand and vote for the wrong thing."

Yeah, like I was saying . . .

The election proposals — all constitutional amendments — would have opened absentee balloting to all voters, lowered the limit on individual campaign contributions, put a board in charge of drawing congressional and legislative districts instead of elected officials and switched election supervision from the secretary of state to another board.

I was also saying this . . .

The transition to new voting machines, mostly touch screens, went smoothly in most of the 44 counties that have them, election officials said. A handful of people left without voting because machines weren't running when polls opened in some precincts. A few polling places opened late.

At six precincts in Toledo, poll workers misplaced cards that the worker must insert to authorize the machine to turn on, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. A handful of voters said they couldn't wait.

Paper ballots were being used within 10 minutes, and elections officials made new cards that were sent to the polling places by about an hour after polls opened, LoParo said.