My interview with BET’s “Cousin Jeff” Johnson is currently the number one feature on HipHopDX.

This is rare for a political piece, but Jeff has certainly got folks’ attention with his latest move to work for a man some people readily compare to Satan - Ohio Secretary of State and Gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell, who many credit with “handing” Bush the election in 2004 through a myriad of voter disenfranchisement practices.

His new job as the Blackwell Gubernatorial campaign’s “advocate to young and urban voters” is causing quite a stir among politically minded hip hoppers and Black folk in general, and there are some good comments from both sides under the story.

In the interview Jeff is quite revealing about why he choose to support Blackwell, and our talk gave me a lot of insight into the shady world of politricks. I hate this system.

And trust, soon as the latest beef between two blockhead rappers or “bad bitches” comes out you will quickly see that shit take over the number one spot at DX.

Either this is a slow news week or hella folks are interested in why exactly Jeff is supporting Blackwell.

So why is Jeff down with him? And will people really be influenced in the Ohio election by Jeff’s support of Blackwell?

Read my interview with Jeff to get the 411 on this situation, and here are some links on the mishandling of the 2004 election and the ancient art of American election rigging:

• Vote Fraud 2004: How Ohio Was “Delivered” to Bush: “In mid-August [2003], Walden W. O’Dell, the chief executive of Diebold Inc., sat down at his computer to compose a letter inviting 100 wealthy and politically inclined friends to a Republican Party fund-raiser, to be held at his home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. ”I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year,” wrote Mr. O’Dell, whose company is based in Canton, Ohio.
• From this Vanity Fair article: ”In Precinct lB of Gahanna, in Franklin County, a computerized voting machine recorded a total of 4,258 votes for Bush and 260 votes for Kerry. In that precinct, however, there are only 800 registered voters, of whom 638 showed up. Once the “glitch” had been identified, the president had to be content with 3,893 fewer votes than the computer had awarded him…In Mahoning County, Washington Post reporters found that many people had been victims of “vote hopping,” which is to say that voting machines highlighted a choice of one candidate after the voter had recorded a preference for another. Some specialists in election software diagnose this as a “calibration issue.”"
• From Rawstory: “The House Judiciary Democrats investigating election irregularities in Ohio have issued their final report, titled, “With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.” Get the entire report, “Preserving Democracy: What went wrong in Ohio.”
• Greg Palast does the math to deduce that Kerry Won. Peep his formula. 
• Wanna rig an election? These folks say they know the way!

Filed Under: jeff johnson, cousin jeff, ken blackwell, electoral politics, ohio