My Response To Manjoo's Salon Critique
By Cliff Arnebeck
I was counsel of record in litigation over both the 2000 Ohio Supreme Court election and the 2004 Ohio Presidential
election.
I write in response to the Salon Magazine article challenging Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s Rolling Stone Magazine article which asserts that the 2004 Presidential election was
stolen.
In his response to RFK Farhad Manjoo correctly points out that in the 2000 election, Democratic state supreme court
candidate Alice Resnick got more votes than Al Gore in dozens of counties -- and by 126,000 more votes throughout the
state.
However, this was a truly exceptional situation, and those familiar with it would not argue that it disproves Kennedy’s
thesis.
As part of their plan to pack the Ohio courts with business friendly justices, the Ohio and US Chambers of Commerce in
year 2000 spent a total of some $7 million of illegal corporate money attacking Justice Resnick.
Because of litigation we filed, a hearing was held by the Ohio Elections Commission. The hearing was held on the very
day before the 2000 election. At that hearing the Ohio Elections Commission found probable cause that the Chambers’ ads
contained false statements about Justice Resnick and that their conduct violated practically every election law on the
books.
This spectacular decision the day before election day was front page news in every newspaper in the state on election
day.
Most voters had seen the ads attacking Democrat Resnick. The Ohio Elections Commission ruling that the ads were a lie
made the $7 million of attack advertising backfire, with the effect that Resnick got more votes than Gore. (For
information about our chamber of commerce litigation go to http://www.ohiohonestelections.org/index.php?p=chamber-of-commerce ).
Manjoo also fails to note the fact that weeks before election day, Gore had pulled all resources and campaign staff out
of Ohio.
This exception proves the rule, correctly stated by Congressman Kucinich and Robert Kennedy, that the top of the ticket
normally draws more votes than down ticket races. Furthermore, in the twelve suspect Ohio counties in the 2004 election,
the anomaly of Kerry reportedly underperforming the ticket extends down to races for county commissioner, sheriff, and
such lesser offices, where these Democratic candidates lost in these predominantly Republican counties.
- Cliff Arnebeck