Politicians protest certifying of vote
Monday, January 03, 2005
Mark Naymik
Cleveland Plain Dealer Politics Writer

With Congress set to certify the presidential vote this week, U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and the Rev. Jesse Jackson tried Sunday to keep Ohio's election in the spotlight.

Standing in the gymnasium that adjoins Cleveland's Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, the popular East Side congresswoman and the famed civil rights activist called on Congress to protest certifying the election. They claimed that voting irregularities in Ohio on Nov. 2 deserve more scrutiny. 
 Congress is expected to certify the results in a joint session on Thursday.

Before "George Bush can be named president, we must bring attention of the American people to the irregularities in Ohio," Tubbs Jones said.

Tubbs Jones, who campaigned side-by-side with Democrat John Kerry in Ohio, said she plans to protest the certification and ask members of the Senate - particularly Kerry - to do the same, forcing a debate of the issue.

Kerry, in his concession speech, said he didn't believe he had enough votes to defeat Bush. Tubbs Jones said Sunday she has not talked to Kerry about protesting the election but will try to do so by Thursday.

The congresswoman on Sunday repeated many of the complaints that voting-rights activists have aired for weeks: Voters in Cuyahoga County disappeared from registration lists on Election Day; too many provisional ballots - special ballots given to people whose names are not in the poll books - were not counted; the recent recount in Ohio was not handled according to law.

She also chided Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell for co-chairing President Bush's Ohio re-election campaign and accused Blackwell of making "irresponsible rulings" on how election officials handled voter registration cards and provisional ballots.

Election officials around Ohio have acknowledged that some voters faced long lines on Election Day or were inadvertently ped from voter rolls, and that some counties experienced glitches with electronic voting machines. But they insist the problems were typical of any election and were minor when compared to the state's high turnout on Election Day, with hundreds of thousands of new voters casting ballots.

"We want to go through every single issue and fix the issues," Jane Platten, a Cuyahoga County board administrator, said in an interview Sunday. "But the greater community understands that this election was conducted fairly and accurately."

Jackson is not convinced. He used his dramatic flair Sunday to accuse Blackwell and the Republican Party of manipulating the election, referring to the state's recount as "political, not scientific."

He also called on Kerry to join Tubbs Jones and others in challenging the vote - an effort "aimed at ending the level of thievery" that took place in the election.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell, called Sunday's news conference "silly partisan antics."

"If Congresswoman Tubbs Jones wants to make a fool of herself, that's her right," LoParo said. "She is grabbing these fabricated charges and giving them legitimacy."

LoParo said that Ohio counted a higher rate of provisional ballots than most states and that officials representing both parties scrutinized the election process.

He said Blackwell's position as a Bush co-chair was an honorary title and pointed to Democratic election officials in Franklin and Hamilton counties who were active in the Kerry campaign.

"Ohio has a bipartisan election system," LoParo said. "It's absolutely absurd to point to one person with an honorary title."