Analysis:
The article provides a summary of some of some of the things that the speaker presented, such as computer manipulations in the voting machines, voter roll purges and election rule changes. The article also mentions the person in Ohio responsible for some of this manipulation, J. Kenneth Blackwell, as well as mentioning Rep. John Conyers report and the governments General Accounting Office study which also acknowledges that there was evidence of electoral fraud which led a loss of counted votes and a miscounting of votes in some cases.
The lecture presented many statistics and numerous examples of how the election was unfair on many levels, looking at instances in big cities like Toledo, Columbus and Dayton as well as smaller communities throughout Ohio, but none of those details were provided in reference to a specific community. The article does also mention the electronic voting machine company Diebold and its role in the voting results but referred to them as malfunctions. The speaker clearly said throughout the lecture that these were manipulations, as cited in the governments own study. The article also refers to people who acknowledge voter fraud as angry liberals unconvinced of the election's legitimacy. This is how much of the article was framed, by using language that dismisses the seriousness of the charges presented by Fitrakis. Even the headline reflects how the Press doesnt take these claims seriously when it reads Lecturer keeps conspiracy out there.
Story:
Lecturer keeps conspiracy out there
By Steven Harmon
GRAND RAPIDS -- Bob Fitrakis is accustomed to being labeled a conspiracy theorist and on the fringe. But that hasn't stopped him from his relentless pursuit to keep alive the 2004 presidential election and the fraud he says occurred.
Fitrakis, an Ohio attorney and political science professor who observed the Ohio elections in 2004, accuses the Bush administration and Republican friends of stealing the 2004 election through a mixture of computer manipulations, voter roll purges and election rules changes.
He laid out his case to about 50 people at the Wealthy Street Theatre as part of the Community Media Center's lecture series. Bush's victory over U.S. Sen. John Kerry in Ohio by 119,000 votes put him over the top for his re-election, but sparked an underground movement of angry liberals unconvinced of the election's legitimacy.
"What happened in Ohio was very well thought out," said Fitrakis, a Columbus State University professor who attended Grand Valley State University in 1978. "It was no accident. Much can be linked to Karl Rove and J. Kenneth Blackwell," President Bush's senior political adviser and Ohio's Secretary of State, who also was the state's chairman of Bush's re-election committee.
Much of Fitrakis' work has been cited by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, who requested an investigation by the Government Accountability Office, which recently produced a report upholding some of the complaints.
The non-partisan GAO report found that, "some of (the) concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."
Malfunctions in election computers, many of which were designed by Diebold Inc., whose owner promised to "deliver" Ohio to Bush, led to flawed vote counts, Fitrakis said. In one precinct with fewer than 700 voters, for instance, more than 4,000 votes for Bush were tabulated, he said. That mistake was corrected.
Fitrakis, who calls himself an independent voter, didn't spare Democrats from his criticism. "Democrats have done little to challenge the obvious voter suppression," he said. "It's like they think if they behave well, this behavior will go away. It won't. It will get worse." Voters have a hard time believing "the corruption" of their votes because "we've been socialized to believe nobody would do that," Fitrakis said.
