Summit receives formal vote recount request

Green and Libertarian presidential candidates present cash to conduct process throughout Ohio

By Lisa A. Abraham   Akrin Beacon Journal   09 December 2004

The Summit County Board of Elections on Wednesday received a formal request for a recount of the presidential election from Green and Libertarian party candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik.

They submitted the request to the board along with a check for $4,750 $10 for each of the county's 475 precincts to pay for the recount.

All 88 Ohio counties were served with the request this week, an attorney for Cobb and Badnarik said.

Elections Board Deputy Director John Schmidt said the recount must begin between Dec. 13 and Dec. 18 no sooner than five or later than 10 days after the request was received by the board.

The board also must give all other presidential candidates five days' notice of the recount, so it would not be likely to start until after Dec. 13, he said.

The recount request asks that the board ``conduct a full recount by hand.''

But Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's spokesman Carlo LoParo said that doesn't mean the petitioners will get a literal hand recount of the punch cards.

LoParo said state law requires elections boards only to recount ballots. It does not specify a process.

The standard procedure for recounts in Ohio calls for elections boards to count 3 percent of the ballots by hand, and then to conduct a full count using the typical tabulator machines, LoParo said.

Although the recount procedure is not spelled out in the law, it has been used in Ohio for years, he said.

``It's embedded policy and procedure,'' LoParo said.

Richard Kerger of Toledo is Ohio counsel for the National Voting Rights Institute and is representing Cobb and Badnarik.

He said that while the candidates do not necessarily expect all of the ballots to be counted by hand, they will insist on the right to inspect each ballot.

``We will insist on seeing all of the ballots.... We want to inspect each card by hand before they are put into a tabulator,'' Kerger said.

By law, parties requesting recounts are not permitted to touch the ballots.

The parties have witnesses ready to take part in the ballot inspection process across the state, Kerger said.

LoParo said the parties can ask for a visual inspection of each ballot, a move that could turn the recount into a lengthy process.

Kerger contends a recount of the entire state should take about 10 days.

In Summit County, 276,296 votes were cast for president. Cobb did not appear on Summit County ballots.

The Green and Libertarian party candidates are requesting a full recount of Ohio's presidential vote.

President Bush won the Nov. 2 election in Ohio by more than 118,000 votes, according to vote totals certified by Blackwell on Monday.