The Individual has spoken!

If anyone is wondering how you can FAX the U.S. Senators on the PACT Act, or maybe you wanna fax em the sigs from the petition, you can view my blog’s main page by clicking my name on here.

I just posted a list of the fax numbas for the Senators in all 50 states. One smoker online thinks Senators can’t easily ignore faxes unlike phone calls and emails.

Since the fax phone list is too long, dat’s why I ain’t posting it on here. And believe me, dat list is a long mofo when you see it!

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ — A group of Ohio hospitality industry business owners and concerned citizens met last Friday to discuss allegations of election fraud surrounding the SmokeFree Ohio Petition Initiative in 2006. According to an audit conducted since June, 2009 (via public records requests), Opponents of Ohio Bans has discovered multiple violations of elections laws, each of which carries penalties ranging from misdemeanors to felonies, and the blatant disregard of a court order. Glancing through over 9,700 petitions, only obvious violations were noted. OoOB was assured by a representative of the Secretary of State that we have “everything” relating to the 2006 SmokeFree Ohio Petition Initiative petitions. OoOB alleges the following election law violations:

Inconsistent application of the laws by Boards of Elections

Improper validation of signatures by Boards of Elections

Part-petitions that should have been invalidated

At least 47 convicted felons hired as petition circulators and/or supervisors (who completed Form 15s) – part petitions should have been invalidated

This is perhaps the most frightening part of our investigation. Felons who had been convicted of rape or who were listed on the Ohio Sexual Offender website supervised and/or collected a staggering 1,236 signatures. Whose mother or daughter unknowingly gave a rapist or sexual offender their address? Now incarcerated, one such petition circulator, with a previous felony conviction for gross sexual imposition, went to court last month for the rape of a child under the age of 13. He pled to a lesser charge. Five hundred fifty-one people gave their signatures to people who were convicted of forgery-their signatures! Circulators and supervisors also had felony convictions for drug trafficking, grand theft/theft, aggravated arson, burglary, breaking and entering, weapons, kidnapping, etc. Who let this happen?

Paid circulators provided FALSE ADDRESSES

The law required the circulators to provide their permanent address, not a motel (ORC 3501.48(E)(1). One circulator who travels state to state for the lucrative petition industry, listed 11645 Chesterdale Rd., Springdale, Ohio as his address. The Form 15 he filed listed a Florida address. The State of Ohio had a copy of the Form 15 and his petitions with conflicting addresses, yet allowed the petitions to be validated. Another circulator also listed the Chesterdale Road address as her residence, as did circulator employer Ron Lovell. The over 7,200 signatures Lovell paid for listed the Chesterdale Road address as Lovell’s business address. That address is the Extended Stay Motel in Springdale.

Serious mathematical errors on Worklog-Supplemental 2 which accounted for a 5,617 signature error.

Form 15s not filed, not timely filed or filed under a different name than provided on circulator statement

Violating 3501.381 ORC invalidates all related part petitions and is a misdemeanor. At least five petition employers filed Form 15s with the Secretary of State either after signatures were collected by their employees, filed no Form 15 at all, or filed under a different company name than was listed on the circulator statement, as evidenced by the copies provided by the SOS. The employees of these five employers submitted over 29,000 signatures.

Memo from one Board of Elections to the SOS Office asking what to do with a petition with the sole signature dated days prior to the issuance of the petition. The reply from the SOS Office was, “If this for the Smoke Free petition-this does not invalidate an otherwise valid signature”. What if it wasn’t a SmokeFree Ohio petition?

Expenditures for payments to petition companies not reported as such on the Secretary of State’s website as an expenditure for SmokeFree Ohio, as required by law.

Judge David Cain court order ignored (In re Protest of Evans Against Initiative Petition Proposing Smoke Free Workplace Act, 2006-Ohio-4690) May 4, 2006, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David Cain (In re Protest of Evans Against Petition Proposing Smoke Free Workplace Act, 2006-Ohio-4690) ordered a “complete list of the circulators not employed by ACS but who listed ACS as their employer”. Exhibit A contained circulators from 28 counties, invalidating between 43,403-44,664 signatures. However, of Ohio’s 88 counties, 77 counties had circulators who listed the ACS as their employer, not 28 counties. We received incomplete copies of some petitions from the first supplemental, therefore we could only verify that at least an additional 3,470 signatures should have been invalidated. Why were 49 counties left off the list? Those signatures alone would have kept Issue 5 off the ballot.

September 8, 2006, SmokeFree Initiative ordered placed on ballot by SOS.

September 11, 2006, Supreme Court upheld Judge Cain’s decision

September 19, 2006 SFO told to submit additional 23,270 valid signatures

September 28, 2006 SOS received 2nd supplement of petitions from SFO; SOS told County Boards of Elections they had 2+ business days to check signatures against voting records, check data base for duplicates & properly tally the numbers

October 5, 2006, SOS declared SFO had enough signatures

Note that Issue 5 was place on the ballot 20 days before the petitions were received and nearly a month before the SOS declared enough signatures.

Had any one of these voting laws or even the court order been adhered to, the SmokeFree Workplace Act would not have been on the ballot in 2006. OoOB contends the State of Ohio was aware they did not have enough signatures. They pulled Issue 1 off the ballots after it was certified the same election year. They should have Issue 5 as well. “Clearly, the law is for sale in Ohio,” stated Bill Brown, OoOB.

It is the duty of the Secretary of State to certify the sufficiency of the petitions and investigate the administration of election laws, frauds.. (ORC 3501.05). This ballot issue wreaks of violations of numerous laws. The BOE employees did not do their jobs. The Secretary of State did not do his job. Someone needs to enforce the laws and pursue convictions. The lucrative industry of non-grassroots, bussed in petition companies must stop. Background checks must be done on all circulators and they must carry state-issued clearance photo ID. Circulators should not be able to collect signatures for competing issues, as LIN-V-CO did in 2006.

The people demand honesty and integrity in the electoral process; we had neither with Issue 5. The laws governing the petition initiative process are in place; they’re just not enforced.

A representative of ACS said this is just another desperate attempt to overturn a voter approved ban. Voters never should have been able to vote for Issue 5 had anyone done their job. “You bet we’re desperate…desperate to be able to feed our families and not lose everything we’ve invested in our businesses,” said Pam Parker, OoOB. Secretary of State Brunner said there’s no precedent to invalidate a law passed by voters. “Sure there is. It’s called the Ohio Revised Code. The State of Ohio allowed this to happen. Amend the Ohio Revised Code to allow the exemptions for family owned businesses, private clubs and outdoor patios the people voted for, which were removed after the vote. Fix it before any more doors close!” said Linda Hubbard, OoOB.

Related Web site: http://www.opponentsofohiobans.com

SOURCE Opponents of Ohio Bans

Copyright 2009 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved.

And I will make one final point: When there are choices for both non-smoking and smoking establishments(not to mention, ALL THE MANY businesses I’ve seen eliminate smoking in Wisconsin in just the last 2 years alone!), isn’t there NOT a need for a complete smoking ban, if anything? The actions of so many businesses to recently eliminate indoor smoking just go to show that business owners are responding to demands in the marketplace for more non-smoking establishments to exist, while preserving choices for smokers. This is MORE THAN FAIR for both sides seeing either a totally non-smoking environment, or either a smoking or mixed smoking/non-smoking enivronment, IMHO!

here.

Karen

Never mind that I even chose to make the effort to write this necessary response to your comment, since you’re of the disgusting type that loves to use government force over habits you hold a dislike of. I hope you’re happy when government nannies move behind restricting indoor and/or outdoor smoking, and start restricting a legal activity you like doing!