Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? (Who Watches the Watchers?)

New Democrat Crosscut Ballot Box

Most of us remember with disdain, the irregularities surrounding Ohio’s Secretary of State’s reluctance to verify thousands of possibly fraudulent voter registrations. I remember thinking at the time, that conservatives and other responsible voters needed to pay more attention to the supposedly "non-partisan" offices in state government.

Rob Port at Say Anything wrote about Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's SoS, about two weeks ago: “Ohio Election Official: Law Doesn’t Require Me To Actually Check For Voter Registration Fraud”

He ended his piece :

Oh, and by the way, Brunner has extensive connections to both ACORN and the Obama campaign.

Turns out ACORN and the Obama campaign are not the only ones with ties to the Ohio Secretary of State...and she's not alone!

In Minnesota, where news of irregularities in the vote count in the Coleman/Franken Senate race are appearing daily, comes this gem from the WSJ:

This entire process is being overseen by Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who isn't exactly a nonpartisan observer. One of Mr. Ritchie's financial supporters during his 2006 run for office was a 527 group called the Secretary of State Project, which was co-founded by James Rucker, who came from MoveOn.org. The group says it is devoted to putting Democrats in jobs where they can "protect elections."

Protect the elections from honest vote counts? So, a Move-On-dot-organ grinder co-founds the Secretary of State Project specifically to put the foxes in charge of the henhouses? The SoS Project brags of two of its "successes". You guessed it! Jennifer Brunner and Mark Ritchie.

Reform-minded Secretaries of State - like SoS Project success stories Mark Ritchie in Minnesota and Jennifer Brunner in Ohio - are running on platforms that specifically reject this kind of double dealing. But unfortunately SoS Project values are in the minority among today's Secretaries of State.

Also from the Journal piece:

Mr. Ritchie is also an ally of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, of fraudulent voter-registration fame. That relationship might explain why prior to the election Mr. Ritchie waved off evidence of thousands of irregularities on Minnesota voter rolls, claiming that accusations of fraud were nothing more than "desperateness" from Republicans.

The SoS Project piously intones:

"you can't be both a player and a referee"

Now if they would only practice what they preach! Until then, I think we need to keep a sharper eye on Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who watches the watchmen?)

Cross posted at Say Anything