The election is over, it's time to move on
Editorial   Cleveland  News-Herald  12/27/2004

 There's hardly a day goes by that we are spared yet another story about a protest involving the vote count somewhere in this year's election.

If ever a story had legs, it is this one. Florida in 2000 was child's play compared with 2004. Focal point of much of the hue and cry was Ohio. There is a hard-core of hard-headed individuals that still wants to count votes here.

When will it end?

Wednesday's headline said, "Electronic voting worked well, election officials say."

Indeed. In Lake County, the final vote totals were reported at 9:17 p.m. - first in Ohio - and we got it right. Critics, it was reported, remain unconvinced. What will it take?

With recount results reported in 85 of 88 counties last Tuesday, President Bush gained 437 votes and Sen. John Kerry picked up an additional 680.

That narrowed Bush's 119,000-vote lead by 243 votes, the Associated Press reported in a survey of the counties.

Since both sides agreed the recount wouldn't change the outcome, why do we keep counting votes?

In Akron, U.S. District Judge David D. Dowd Jr. ruled that voting rights were not denied to those who use punch-card ballots. It was the nation's first trial to challenge the system blamed for woes in Florida four years ago.

It was claimed Ohio violated the voting rights of blacks, who predominately live in punch-card counties. Dowd disagreed.

"All voters in a county, regardless of race, use the same voting system to cast a ballot," he said, "and no one is denied the opportunity to cast a valid ballot because of their race."

A lawyer representing Kerry asked that representatives of the campaign be allowed to inspect those ballots. What's the point?

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and attorney Cliff Arnebeck of the Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy asked the Ohio Supreme Court to reconsider the election results, accusing Bush's campaign of "high-tech vote stealing."

How can these two expect to be taken seriously when they use inflammatory language such as that?

As newspapers across the country have pointed out, most Americans have grasped the basic reality of the 2004 election: Bush won.

It is time for Jackson to stop talking about vote-stealing, time for the Green and Libertarian parties to understand that their combined three-tenths of one percent of the vote is a fly speck and not deserving of a recount, and time for MoveOn to move on.

The election is over. If you really care about the process, do yourselves a favor - start getting ready for the next one.