Warren Co. recount goes public
After Election Night lockdown, security eases up

By Erica Solvig Cincinnati Enquirer  15 December 2004

LEBANON - Even as Warren County elections officials recounted votes Tuesday - this time, publicly - questions lingered about how the votes were tallied the first time.

Warren County has drawn national attention for locking down its administration building on Election Night, barring the media and some pre-approved observers and volunteers from watching the process while the nation anxiously awaited Ohio's crucial presidential results.

County officials say the lockdown was prompted by terrorism concerns, though national and local FBI and Homeland Security officials have said there was no increased risk here. Now, board of election members, school officials and even the county sheriff say they had no advance knowledge of the security plans either.

The Warren questions have helped fuel the statewide recount and spurred questions from a U.S. House judiciary committee about Ohio's results, as well as conspiracy theories of vote-tampering and fraud.

"That's why we're here," said Bethe Goldenfield, who helped organize the Green party volunteers who watched Tuesday's recount. "It's the questions that linger out there."

Interested reporters and citizens were allowed to watch Tuesday's recount through a doorway.

Election board members hand-counted the required 3 percent of the 95,512 ballots - randomly chosen from precincts in Deerfield Township, Clearcreek Township and Mason.

They were watched by six observers - two each from the Republican, Democratic, and Green parties.

By about 4 p.m., the machines had finished counting the rest. In the end, elections director Susan Johnson said, President Bush gained two votes and Democrat John Kerry gained one vote, so Bush still took the county with 72 percent of the vote.

During the official Electoral College vote Monday, all 20 Ohio GOP delegates cast their votes for Bush.

Unlike Nov. 2, no major security measures were taken Tuesday. People moved freely through the public building on Justice Drive, using both the front and side doors. There wasn't a deputy in sight for most of the day.

Emergency Services Director Frank Young, who helped organize the security on Election Day, was unaware of any precautions taken Tuesday.

Election Day security at the administration building and at the juvenile center, where there was a voting precinct, cost the sheriff's office 32 hours of overtime - or about $1,000. But emergency services and county officials, and not the sheriff's office, made the security arrangements, Sheriff Tom Ariss said.

"We had no input on that decision," he said.

The schools were not informed of the terrorism concerns either, though Commissioner Pat South said Warren County was rated a 10 on a threat scale of 10. Donovan Elementary, with 752 third- and fourth-graders, is across the street and on Election Day, students participated in outdoor recess and some even walked to and from school.

Lebanon Schools Superintendent Bill Sears said district officials did not receive any advisory regarding possible terrorist actions.

"If anybody finds out there had been a terror advisory, I wish somebody would have warned us, too, because we would have certainly taken precautions," said Sears.

Though the administration building was locked down, no metal detectors were brought in. At least one sheriff's deputy was in the building until the early morning hours, and a bomb-sniffing dog was present.

Young said there was "no specific, 100 percent threat," and that security precautions were based on months of information.

"The recommendations I made were just to control the flow of people into that building that night," Young said. "Somebody didn't come out and say 'Al-Qaida is going to blow up the administration building,' and I think that's where this thing has been overblown or misconstrued."

County commissioners have asked Young to work with the elections board to organize future security procedures.

"Everyone's learned from it," Ariss said.