Forida-like recount could happen in Ohio
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Scott Hiaasen and Julie Carr Smyth
Cleveland Plain Dealer Reporters

Let's say a bolt of Florida lightning strikes Ohio on election night. What happens if the presidential race is too close to call?

In Ohio, a recount is automatic in a statewide race if the difference between the top two candidates is 0.25 percent or less. In 2000, when nearly 4.8 million votes for president were cast in the state, George W. Bush would have had to lead Al Gore by no more than 11,990 votes to trigger a recount.

Ohio's last statewide recount was in the 1990 attorney general's race between Democrat Lee Fisher and Republican Paul Pfeifer, which Fisher won by 1,234 votes.

Pfeifer, now an Ohio Supreme Court justice, said the state's recount procedure favors the election night victor.

"We were in a position where you had to almost prove to a mathematical certainty that the things that went wrong would have caused a different outcome," he said.

Fisher's lawyer, Gregg Haught, said the experience was equally worrisome to the other side.

"Ohio is an unexploded bomb as far as the election recount process," he said. "Both Cuyahoga and Hamilton counties, two of the three biggest counties in the state, use punch cards that could lead to a Palm Beach County, Florida-style disaster."

Besides mandatory recounts, a candidate also can request a recount in a particular precinct, county or across the whole state.

The law details the procedures for a recount on all the different voting machines used around the state. Three percent of the ballots must be counted by hand and also by machine - and if they don't add up, all the ballots must be counted by hand.

But here's where things could get dicey.

A recount can't be conducted until after the official canvass of the ballots, which takes place at different speeds in different counties. The local election boards must wait 10 days after Election Day to receive ballots sent from the military and other overseas voters. They also must account for every ballot sent to every precinct.

Cuyahoga County elections officials don't expect to certify the county's election results until Dec. 6, said Deputy Director Gwen Dillingham. If that holds true, no recount could begin before then.

Then candidates still have five days to request a recount, so it could begin as late as Dec. 11. And if the recount appears to reverse the election, the spurned candidate has five days to ask for another recount in any precincts not already recounted.

One problem: Under federal law, the state's electors to the Electoral College must a presidential candidate for the state in Columbus on Dec. 13. (Each state party s a group of electors to formally endorse the winning candidate.) If the election results can't determine who won by then, the General Assembly can put through legislation to name a winner.

More likely, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell could ask local officials to certify the votes earlier to avoid missing the federal deadline.

After a recount, a candidate may still contest the election results by filing a complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court.

All of this is highly unlikely to happen in Ohio. But the Florida mess was unlikely, too.

"We always pray that winners win big," Dillingham said.