Results in Ohio Still Contested (Death By Laughter Alert!)

Disgruntled voters seek recount, may file suit over Bush's victory. No proof of fraud found

WASHINGTON - As Ohio counties certified election resultsWednesday, most showed that President Bush won the pivotal battleground state Nov. 2 and with it a second term. But the certifications didn't yet seal the results, and disgruntled groups alleging vote fraud plan to contest the state's results 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 today contesting Bush's victory.

Despite these challenges -- and rampant charges on the Internet that Republicans stole the election for Bush in Ohio -- there's still no proof of significant 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.

• 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.

``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.

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

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 today 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.

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.

Ken Blackwell has awesome credentials and not just as a conservative republican. He is everything that Jesse Jackson isn't. Read below.

J. Kenneth Blackwell brings a distinguished record of achievement as an educator, diplomat and finance executive to his current position as the 51st Secretary of State of Ohio. As Secretary of State, he serves as Ohio’s chief elections officer and administrator of official records.

Mr. Blackwell's public service includes terms as Mayor of Cincinnati, an undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and Treasurer of the State of Ohio. He is currently a vice president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, a member of the board of directors of the Campaign Finance Institute in Washington, D.C., a member of the Advisory Panel of the Federal Elections Commission, and a member of the board of directors of the John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs (Ashland University). He is president of the National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council, a member of the Harvard Policy Group on Network-Enabled Services and Government, and a member of the Advisory Board of The Princeton Review.

In March 2002, he was recognized as one of the top 25 government leaders in information technology by Government Technology magazine, and he later delivered the keynote address at Governing magazine’s national conference on “Managing Technology.” Over 20 years ago, he began his work in using technology to help government fulfill its mission and commitment to citizens as a member of the board of directors of Public Technology, Inc., located in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the board of directors of the International City Management Association/Retirement Corporation.

A certified government finance manager, Mr. Blackwell is on the board of directors of the National Taxpayers Union, and was formerly a domestic policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. He has served as the vice chairman of the Working Group on Soft Dollars and Commission Recapture for the U.S. Department of Labor's Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans (E.R.I.S.A.). He was a delegate to the National Summit on Retirement Savings in both 1998 and 2002. He served on the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, and in 1998, he co-edited a book with Jack Kemp, entitled, IRS v. The People: Time for Real Tax Reform.

Mr. Blackwell has also served on the boards of directors of Physicians for Human Rights, the International Republican Institute and the Congressional Human Rights Foundation. He was a scholar-in-residence at the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. As United States Representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, he led the U.S. delegation to all four of the preparatory meetings for the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the board of directors of the American Council of Young Political Leaders and the National Council of the United Nations Association of the USA. He presently serves on the Board of Governors of the International League for Human Rights and the National Council of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

His international activities have taken him to 53 countries and strengthened his understanding of emerging international markets and the growth of democracy worldwide. Mr. Blackwell has held the nation's highest security clearance, and has twice received the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award for his work in the field of human rights from the Administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton.

He holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Education degrees from Xavier University (OH) where he later served as a vice-president and member of its faculty. In 1992, he received Xavier's Distinguished Alumnus Award. He has been a Fellow at Harvard University's School of Government, the Aspen Institute, the Salzburg Seminar in Austria and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University (British-American Project). His continuing education has included executive programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard.

Among his awards are honorary doctoral degrees from several institutions of higher education in Ohio, including Ashland University, Cincinnati Technical College, Urbana University, Wilberforce University, and Wilmington College, as well as from Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire. He is a recipient of the Veritas Award from Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut.

In 1998, Mr. Blackwell delivered the Beckett Lecture on Religious Liberty at Oxford University. He has also lectured at Harvard, the University of Newcastle in England, the Moscow State Institute for International Relations in Russia, and the International Academy of Public Administration in Paris.

His commentaries have been carried in major newspapers across the United States, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as all major newspapers in Ohio. He is a frequent guest on network and broadcast news and public affairs programs, including The O’Reilly Factor, Crossfire, Inside Politics, The Jim Lehrer Newshour, and Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Mr. Blackwell is a lifelong resident of Cincinnati, where he was born on February 28, 1948. He and his wife of thirty-four years, Rosa, have three children, Kimberly, Rahshann, and Kristin. In 1994, the Blackwells were honored as one of The National Council of Negro Women’s Families of the Year, and, in 1996, Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell together received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Dreamkeeper Award.

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