Groups plan to contest Ohio election results

By STEVEN THOMMA   01 December 2004

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Ohio counties certified election results Wednesday showing that President Bush won the pivotal battleground state Nov. 2 and with it a second term. But the certification didn't yet seal the results, and disgruntled groups alleging vote fraud planned to contest the statewide result and demand a recount.

One coalition of disgruntled voters and interest groups plans to seek a recount. Another plans to file a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court on Thursday contesting Bush's victory.

Despite these challenges - and rampant charges on the Internet that Republicans stole the election for Bush in Ohio - there's no proof of fraud, and there's no reason yet to think the election will be overturned. Consider:

_Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who conceded Ohio and the election Nov. 3 after his aides concluded there was no reasonable chance for him to overturn Bush's margin there of 136,000 votes, refuses to join the challenges.

"We haven't seen any evidence to suggest that the outcome of the election would change," Kerry spokesman David Wade said.

Kerry's campaign has filed one legal brief, but it argues only that if there is a recount, it should include all Ohio counties. It doesn't call for a recount.

A federal judge has blocked efforts to start a recount quickly;

Any recount wouldn't start until Dec. 11. That would leave only about 24 hours to find enough invalid votes to reverse Bush's victory in Ohio before the state's presidential electors vote for him on Dec. 13, which would seal his re-election.

Official results from the state's 88 counties were sent Wednesday to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. He's expected to certify the tally Dec. 6 showing that Bush won the state.

The challenges are proceeding along two tracks.

The first - by the Green and Libertarian parties, whose candidates each polled less than 1 percent in Ohio - seeks a recount.

"There were widespread reports of irregularities," said Blair Bobier, an Oregon attorney for the Green Party. "They range from computer glitches that recorded more votes for George Bush than there were registered voters to people attempting to vote for one candidate and the screen showing they voted for another candidate."

The machine that showed more votes for Bush than the number of registered voters was in Franklin County. A spokesman for Blackwell's office said the problem was detected and corrected. The votes weren't counted.

Touch-screen machines show the final vote before recording it so that voters have a chance to correct mistakes. Yet Bobier said some voters weren't able to correct their mistakes because they got incorrect instructions from poll workers or gave up and left the wrong votes on the machines.

One goal of a recount would be to examine 93,000 ballots that were spoiled or discarded for other reasons. "Without a recount, those won't get counted at all," Bobier said. Another would be to ensure that problems are detected and corrected before the elections in 2006.

The second track is the group that plans to challenge the election, which said it would file a lawsuit Thursday with the state Supreme Court. The group includes 25 Ohio voters and is backed by a Massachusetts-based interest group, Alliance for Democracy.

Among their complaints: Kerry was outpolled in southern Ohio - a culturally conservative area - by a black female Democrat running for the state Supreme Court. The challengers say that's unlikely and reason that it means 70,000 votes were stolen from Kerry and given to Bush.

"In southern Ohio, there's no reason to believe a black female candidate would be outperforming Kerry," said Cliff Arnebeck, an attorney for the group. "It's a fix. Whether they had the computers rigged to do this, we'll find out."

Another complaint: The Ohio results contradicted exit surveys showing Kerry ahead in the state. Pressed to explain how that was evidence of fraud, Arnebeck said exit polls were better proof of voting than vote results.

"The exit-polling process is sponsored by news organizations, which are professionally committed to truth, not the distorted picture one party wants to convey," he said. "It is a much more credible form of evidence of how people voted than this incredibly partisan machinery we have in place to conduct our elections."

In fact, exit polls in many states were inaccurate throughout Election Day, misleading those privy to them until more complete results came in.

Arnebeck said Blackwell, the secretary of state, shouldn't judge the final election results because he co-chaired Bush's state campaign. "He was a captain of one of the teams and the chief referee," Arnebeck said.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell, said the charges were wrong. He noted that each Ohio county's result is certified by local elections boards governed by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. The same boards would conduct recounts.

"We have seen no evidence to indicate fraud or widespread irregularities. We have had an outstanding election in Ohio," LoParo said. "There are valuable checks and balances on our elections process."