Ilene PRoctor INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS Press Contact: Ilene Proctor or Margery Epstein Direct Line: (310) 271.5857 Cell: (310) 721.2336 E-mail: proctor@artnet.net Another Victory for Truth, Electoral Justice, and the American Way! The Fraudbuster Green Candidate for Governor of Ohio Bob Fitrakis Runs on a Platform of Zero Tolerance for Corruption Targets Republican Governor Candidate Kenneth Blackwell as "Enemy of the State" Great crises produce great men and great deeds of courage. Our true American hero, Dr. Robert Fitrakis is an ordinary American who has bravely chosen to speak out. He wants to make those responsible for what happened on November 2004 in Ohio accountable for their actions. Armed with handfuls of honors, Dr. Fitrakis "walks his talk" and so he and his supporters will be walking block-to-block, house-to-house to be the Governor of the great state of Ohio in 2006. Bob Fitrakis has been endorsed by the Green Party of Ohio along with two other fraudbusting veterans: Anita Rios, his running mate as Lt. Governor, and Tim Kettler (website: www.sostim06.com), candidate for Secretary of State. Together they will spearhead the Green Party campaign to clean up the sleaze that has become so entrenched with the two major parties and their big money patrons. Bob and his running mates were principals in the battle waged by the Green Party to recount the votes after the 2004 election. Anita Rios and Tim Kettler were both involved in lawsuits against the current Secretary of State because of his official actions which disenfranchised so many Ohio voters and skewed the vote count. "The goal of my campaign will be to win the Governor's mansion back for the People of Ohio," said Fitrakis, when he announced his candidacy last November. "Both the Republican and Democratic parties have brought dishonor to our great state with their cronyism and insider dealing. We need to clean house and end this culture of corruption." Bob’s barbs are mostly directed against Ohio’s Secretary of State and Republican Candidate for Governor, Kenneth Blackwell, the enemy of the state, and the man who fixed the presidential election in 2004. Bob is dedicated to exposing the voting machine industrial complex so deeply entrenched in Ohio. An encyclopedia of information, Bob never fails to point out the devastating discrepancies between exit polls and the highly improbable and virtually impossible vote total that gave George W. Bush a second term. hE pulls no punches about precinct-by-precinct illegalities including unguarded ballots, election machine tampering, an unexplained bogus Homeland Security alert, the firing of whistle-blowing election board officials, and much more. Clean Elections Advocate The shiv to the gut of democracy that occurred Nov. 2004 can be found in reams of data and volumes of eyewitness testimony, and none better than in Bob’s most recent book in defense of electoral justice, How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election and Is Rigging 2008. This is a summary of the 767-page volume Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election?, which he co-edited with Harvey Wasserman and Steve Rosenfeld. Rivaling the size of Webster’s Dictionary, Bob Fitrakis’ 760 page tome Did George W. Bush Steal America’s 2004 Election? Essential Democrats” is filled to the brim with scathing details regarding voting irregularities — the unconscionably long lines in Democratic precincts, the untold instances of vote flipping (press Kerry, Bush lights up), the undervotes, the bogus “Level 10” Homeland Security lockdown in Ohio’s Warren County while the votes were counted in secret, the Ohio precinct where 638 ballots were cast but 4,258 votes were recorded for Bush (what investigative reporter Bob Fitrakis calls the miraculous “loaves and fishes” precinct), and so much more. It includes many crucial source materials, commentary and investigative reports—including the complete text of the Conyers report, prepared by the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff. It is a must read for all people concerned about saving democracy and ensuring free and fair elections in the future with accountability and paper trails (better yet, paper ballots) guaranteed by law in 50 states. BANNING THE BALLOT IN BUSH’S AMERICA: A typical testimony came from an elderly man, “I voted in every election . I believed my civic duty was important. The right to vote gave me the power to determine my future. I was obviously very proud — never missed an election. I have been voting at the same precinct for 50 years.” But, as happened to so many others on Election Day, the man’s name just disappeared off the rolls. His name was just removed, no explanation. He was forced to use a provisional ballot — which was not only an insult to someone like him, but a crapshoot in terms of whether the vote would actually be counted. “I guess my vote don’t matter anymore,” he said at the public hearing. ETHNIC CLEANSING OF THE VOTER ROLLS: We can't leave the topic of ethnically cleansing the voter rolls without a stop in Ohio in 2004. In Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), some citizens have been caught Registering While Black. A statistical analysis of would-be voters indicates that black voters are three times as likely as white voters to have their registration requests "returned" (i.e. subject to rejection). And to give a boost to this whitening of the voter rolls, for the first time since the days of Jim Crow, the Republicans created challenges to black voters on Election Day. Such racial profiling as part of a plan to block voters is illegal under the Voting Rights Act. Nevertheless, neither the Act nor federal judges have persuaded the party of Lincoln to join the Democratic Party in pledging not to distribute black-lists to block voters during the 2004 election. ABSENTEE BALLOTS GO AWOL: It's 10pm – Do you know where your absentee ballot is? Voters wary about computer balloting are going postal: in some states, mail-in ballot requests are up 500%. The probability that all those votes -- up to 15 million -- will be counted is zip. Those who mail in ballots or use 2004 provisional ballots in Ohio are very trusting souls. Mail-in voter registration forms are protected by federal law. Local government must acknowledge receiving your registration and must let you know if there's a problem (say, with signature or address) that invalidates your registration. But your mail-in vote is an unprotected crap-shoot. How do you know if your ballot was received? Was it tossed behind a file cabinet -- or tossed out because you did not include your middle initial? In many counties, you won't know. It is well-reported that in Ohio they failed to send out thousands of absentee ballots. Bob’s earlier works include The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal and Imprison George W. Bush: Commentary On Why The President Must Be Indicted (co-authored with Harvey Wasserman). Bob was an Election Protection attorney on November 2, 2004 in Franklin County. He called the first public hearings to investigate voter suppression and election irregularities after the 2004 election, and was one of four attorneys to file a challenge to Ohio's presidential election results in the Moss v. Bush and Moss v. Moyer lawsuits. Bob served as an international elections observer in 1994 during the first democratic election in El Salvador since the recent civil war. He co-wrote the official report on the election to the United Nations. Bob's Service in Education Dr. Fitrakis, who won his school's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1991, currently serves as the National Vice Chancellor and the Chancellor for Ohio of the International Association of Educators for World Peace. He served as Chair of the Columbus State Community College Instructional Support Council and is a past President of both the Columbus State Educational Association and Columbus State Faculty Senate. Bob with his wife, Suzanne Patzer He also served as the Faculty Advisor to the Ohio Board of Regents and served on the Africentric School Advisory Board for the Columbus Public Schools, as a Near East Area Commissioner, and by helping local Columbus youth through the West High School College Preparation Program. In 2002, Fitrakis was awarded the Golden Ruler Award from the Columbus School Board for his journalism in behalf of Columbus schoolchildren. The local Police Officers for Equal Rights honored Fitrakis with its Best Community Journalism award, and the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio honored him with their Selma Walker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Human Rights Activism. Service in Journalism As a fraudbusting journalist, Bob has won awards from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists, the Press Club of Cleveland, and other professional organizations for articles on the Voinovich family, drug smuggling, Ku Klux Klan activities, and corruption in the local bail bond industry. In addition, he serves as Executive Director of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism (CICJ), where he publishes and serves as an editor and writer of the Free Press. The Free Press article "How a Republican Election Supervisor Manipulated the 2004 Central Ohio Vote" received the Project Censored Third Most Censored story in the world in 2005. From 1990 to 2000, Fitrakis co-hosted a regular public access news/public affairs program, "From the Democratic Left," offering analysis of political events and social issues, both locally and nationally. This program chronicled the activism of the progressive community in Central Ohio, from Gulf War demonstrations to anti-Klan protests. From June 1996 to February 2003, he co-hosted a weekly public affairs call-in talk radio program, "Fight Back!" on WSMZ 103.1FM, and from March 2003-May 2006 hosted two programs on WVKO 1580AM . ~Ilene Proctor Approves of This Message~ http://www.bobforohio.com/press/2006/may/pr2006-05-01.php Campaign websites: www.bobforohio.com and www.fraudbusterbob.com Paid for by the Fitrakis for Governor Campaign, Paul Dumouchelle, Treasurer, 8832 Nairn Ct., Dublin, Ohio 43017.