[Mb-civic] Ohio Vote Recounts

[Michael Butler]

Also see below:     
Ohio Finds Possible Double Votes, Counts    €

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  Democrats Take up Fight Over Ballots
  By Bill Sloat
  Cleveland Plain Dealer

  Thursday 18 November 2004

  Cincinnati - Seeming to brush aside John Kerry's concession speech, the
Ohio Democratic Party has launched a federal court fight over nearly 155,000
provisional ballots by contending a proper accounting of those votes might
decide who really won.

  In Ohio, Bush now holds a lead of about 136,000 votes over Kerry.

  County officials across the state began tabulating provisional ballots
Friday.

  "Given the closeness of the presidential and other elections," Ohio's
provisional ballots "may prove determinative of the outcome," Democrats
argue in a legal filing made public Wednesday by the U.S. District Court.

  The lawsuit asked U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson to order Ohio
Secretary of State Ken Blackwell to impose uniform standards for counting
provisional votes on all 88 counties. Democrats want the judge to take
action quickly - before the results of the election are certified.

  Watson, who was appointed by Bush, has not set a hearing.

  Don McTigue, a Columbus lawyer who filed the lawsuit for the Ohio
Democratic Party, said the Democrats have concerns that different standards
are being applied from county to county.

  "Our action is not tied to some hope of changing the outcome of the
election. We're being consistent with the Kerry campaign, and the Democratic
Party's interest in seeing all eligible ballots are counted," McTigue said.

  Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell, defended Ohio's rules for
handling provisional ballots as explicit. He said Blackwell, a Republican,
is adamant that every valid vote will be counted.

  In court papers, the Democrats cite Bush v. Gore - the Supreme Court
ruling after Florida's contested election that awarded Bush the White House
in 2000 - as a legal precedent for the Ohio lawsuit. That case was decided
by a majority of five justices.

  "In Bush v. Gore, the United States Supreme Court held that the failure to
provide specific standards for counting of ballots that are sufficient to
assure a uniform count statewide violates the Equal Protection Clause of the
United States Constitution," their court filing said.

  In Ohio, Democrats argue, the state lacks clear statewide rules that
guarantee provisional ballots are processed consistently from county to
county.

  Democrats intervened in an existing lawsuit filed by Republicans on
election night. That case has been inactive," said Dan Hoffheimer, the Kerry
campaign's chief lawyer in Ohio.

  "I think the Republicans went to court first to protect their interests.
Now, it looks like the Ohio Democratic Party is doing the same. Certainly,
as far as I know today, the Kerry-Edwards campaign is not planning to file
such a case," Hoffheimer said.

  Provisional ballots are special ballots used by voters who believe they
are registered but who don't appear on the rolls, those who could not
provide proof of identity and others who had moved, but did not update their
registration information. Once local officials verify that the voters were
indeed registered and that they voted in the correct precinct, their
provisional ballot can be counted.

  Most of Ohio's provisional ballots were cast in urban areas where Kerry
typically fared well. Cuyahoga County had the most - nearly 25,000. About
13,000 of those had been verified as of Wednesday, with about 8,600 of that
group deemed valid.

  Meanwhile, the presidential candidates from the Green and Libertarian
parties have said they will demand a recount of all the ballots in Ohio -
which could include a review of another group of votes; 92,672 "spoiled"
ballots that recorded no vote for president.

  Still, many political experts - including top Kerry campaign operatives -
believe Bush's margin cannot be overcome.

  "I think the Democrats are more worried about avoiding a controversy in
2006 or 2008," said Dan Takaji, an Ohio State University law professor who
is an expert on election law. He views the Democrats' court action as a move
to make sure that there are solid, court-approved guidelines for future
elections.

  "But there's no way the math is going to change," Takaji said. "The margin
might shrink as the provisionals are counted, but if you look seriously at
the numbers, the outcome won't change."

  Gene Beaupre, a political scientist at Xavier University in Cincinnati,
saw the suit as an effort by Democratic officials to assuage party loyalists
who feel Kerry quit without a fight in Ohio.

  "There's certainly a feeling out there that people were let down by the
leadership," Beaupre said. "All you have to do is look on the Internet, and
that sense of disappointment is a political reality among a lot of people
who are Internet users."

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  Ohio Finds Possible Double Votes, Counts
  Associated Press

  Thursday 18 November 2004

  COLUMBUS, Ohio - Election officials in one Ohio county found that about
2,600 ballots were double-counted, and two other counties have discovered
possible cases of people voting twice in the presidential election.

  Prosecutors were trying to determine Wednesday whether charges should be
filed against a couple in Madison County accused of voting twice. In
addition, Summit County election workers investigated possible double votes
found under 18 names.

  In the other case, Sandusky County election officials discovered that
about 2,600 ballots from nine precincts were counted twice, likely because
of worker error, elections director Barb Tuckerman said.

  Tuckerman believes the votes were counted twice when they were mistakenly
placed alongside a pile of uncounted ballots. The room where the ballots
were being fed into optical-scan machines on election night was so crowded
that ballots had to be placed on the floor, Tuckerman said.

  Under Ohio law, people who vote twice could be charged with election
fraud, falsification or illegal voting, according the Secretary of State's
Office. The maximum penalty for the most severe charge is 18 months in
prison.

  Double votes could have affected the result of a local schools income tax
request that failed by one vote in Madison County.

  In Illinois, thousands of provisional ballots cast on Election Day did not
count, in most cases for lack of evidence the voters were actually
registered. The Associated Press count was based on checks of several
election jurisdictions. State officials were still gathering information
Wednesday on provisional ballots cast statewide, a day after the deadline to
count them.

 

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