Ohio is the state made infamous for its inability to hold a proper election, the one where its Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, promised he had a secret weapon to deliver to George Bush the presidency in 2004. Those who have studied the election say this weapon was disenfranchisement of the poor in Ohio, a swing state.

Now, with Ohio Republican Governor Bob Taft ineligible to be a candidate this November due to convictions on misdemeanor charges, there will not be an incumbent in the race.

But the Secretary of State who provided Bush the fruits of the secret weapon is now the Republican candidate for Governor, and he still presides over the ballot boxes. He is challenged by Democrat Ted Strickland, who has an apparent lead in the polls, Libertarian candidate William Pierce, and Green candidate Dr. Bob Fitrakis, the subject of this week’s Lone Star Iconoclast intervew.

Ohio is traditionally known as a two-party state none other need apply. The Democrats and Republicans have structured the government so that independent candidates have to climb a very high perpendicular mountainside just to get on the ballot. Fitrakis, for instance, submitted 10,915 signatures of Ohio voters just to get on the ballot. Under Ohio law, “the Democrats and Republicans running for statewide office only had to get 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot, while ‘other party candidates’ have to get five times as many signatures,” noted Fitrakis.

He went on, “And, under Ohio law, the Democrats and Republicans at the county Boards of Elections get to jointly verify our signatures without our presence. In Ohio, we have a two-party system, only slightly better than a dictatorship. And for every dollar the wealthy send the Republicans, they flip a 50-cent piece to the Democrats. Because they’re beholden to the same corporate money and studies indicate one percent of the population gives 90 percent of the money to political candidates, there’s very little real policy debate in Ohio, or the nation in general.”

Minority parties and independents have also had difficulty being included in debates, which, according to Fitrakis, vastly limits new ideas, since the ties to the R’s and D’s are so close.

Fitrakis has been fighting what he deems is a corrupt election system in Ohio. He has been on the forefront to spread the word of what went wrong in the 2004 election. He considered it a victory on Sept. 7 when U.S. District Court Judge Algernon Marbley ordered all of Ohio’s 88 Boards of Elections to preserve all 2004 presidential election ballots in paper or electronic form until a civil rights suit, brought by inner city black organizations against Ken Blackwell, is resolved.

Described as a “fraudbuster,” Fitrakis will not be alone on the Green Party section of the ballot, as two other fraudbusting veterans, Anita Rios, who is running for Lt. Governor, and Tim Kettler, candidate for Secretary of State, will join in spearheading the Green Party campaign, the three being principals in the b