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Edited on Thu Jan-12-06 04:40 PM by mod mom
Ok Election Reformers, get your questions ready because DUers will be able to pose their election reform questions to Bob Fitrakis, <freepress.org>, tomorrow, Friday January 13 at 9 pm EST (to allow you left coasters to participate). Bob was one of the four attorneys who contested the '04 election in Ohio and his articles for Freepress frequently make the greatest page here at DU. Here is his bio for further information on Bob:
Bob Fitrakis is a lawyer and award-winning journalist and Professor of Political Science in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State Community College. He earned his law degree at the Ohio State University Mortitz College of Law, and his Ph.D in Political Science from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.
Well known for his support of electoral justice for all Americans, his most recent book is "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? Essential Documents," which was co-edited with Harvey Wasserman and Steve Rosenfeld. 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.
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. 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. Currently a Near East Area Commissioner, he also has helped 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.
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. His program, "Fight Back," is currently on WVKO1580AM radio on Thursdays from 8 to 9 AM and Saturdays from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM.
In early December, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Bob Fitrakis accepted an invitation from the Congressional Progressive Caucus to come to Washington, D.C. to brief federal lawmakers on the electoral injustices that took place in Ohio during the 2004 campaign season. He and fellow electoral reform expert Harvey Wasserman addressed both the many ways Ohio's votes were compromised and the ways that these problems could be fixed through legislative remedies.
Fitrakis also met separately with three Members of Congress in preparation for a documentary that he is producing on electoral reform issues.
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