The “war on terror” strikes again:
Warren County officials, facing scrutiny of their decision to lock down the administration building on election night, say they were responding to a terrorist threat that ranked a “10” on a scale of 1 to 10.
The information, which Commissioner Pat South said was previously deemed confidential, is coming out a week after the public was barred from viewing the Warren County vote count. The Ohio Secretary of State’s office doesn’t know of any other county in the state to impose such a restriction.
County officials initially said they feared that having reporters and photographers present could interfere with the ballot counting. They subsequently cited homeland security concerns.
. . .
County officials locked down the administration building on Justice Drive after the polls there had closed. Officials say having both a polling place and the board of elections in one location increased security concerns.
“It wasn’t international terrorism that we were in fear of; it was more domestic terrorism,” South said Tuesday. “I much prefer sitting here today telling you why we did implement security rather than why we didn’t.”
County board of elections officials had compiled a list of people who were approved for after-hours access, but that list didn’t include reporters.
It also didn’t include an approved ballot-count watcher.
That’s weird, isn’t it? Who would think Warren County, Ohio, would be a high-risk terrorist target?
Apparently not the FBI:
Officials at the FBI, which oversees anti-terrorism activities in southern Ohio, said they received no information about a terror threat in Warren County.
“The FBI did not notify anyone in Warren County of any specific terrorist threat to Warren County before Election Day,” FBI spokesman Michael Brooks said.
A spokeswoman for Ohio’s top homeland security official, Public Safety Director Ken Morckel, knew of no heightened terror warning for either Warren County or any other Greater Cincinnati community on election night.
So now government officials need only cite bogus terrorism threats in order to dodge transparency and public accountability? Lame.
Props to The Cincinnati Enquirer and Countdown with Keith Olbermann for reporting this story. Most of the media has gone to sleep regarding Election Day irregularities.