Husted Amps Up Effort to Be Worse SoS Than Ken Blackwell

It's hard to believe that Jon Husted was once viewed as being a slightly reasonable politician. More and more he is using his office as secretary of state — the state's chief elections officer — to demonstrate his active contempt for democracy and fair elections. I heard some whining from Democrats that they didn't approve of every single thing Jennifer Brunner did during her four years as SoS (2007-20011), but sandwiched between Ken Blackwell and Jon Husted, she's starting to look like the saint of election integrity.

Look at this:

"Jon Husted asks feds for immigration database for voters' citizenship verification."

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/07/jon_husted_asks_feds_for...

Now there is a "solution" in search of a problem. Just as there is not a shred of evidence that "voter fraud" is or has ever been a problem in Ohio, there is no evidence that "illegal" immigrants try to vote. None, Nada. Zip. And given that Ohio's immigrant population is tiny compared to other states, Husted is wasting our time here on a mean-spirited, xenophobic witch hunt driven most likely a desire to scare and intimidate some voters.

I don't even believe it's about bigotry. It's all about trying to rig the election in November, an election it looks increasingly likely that Mitt Romney can't win unless a significant number of voters are disenfranchised. In some states, such as Washington, elections officials are beating the bushes for ways to make voting easier and increase participation. Jon Husted should be deeply ashamed of working to decrease voter participation and possibly make Ohio a national object of derision again, just as Ken Blackwell did in 2004.