[Robert357]

The whole Ohio vote thing should be an embarisment to the Democratic Party.

First they said that voters were disenfrancised and minority votes were suppressed by the long lines at the polls and so the state-wide vote for Bush should be contested.

Next the Dem's did their little act in Congress with the Electorial College vote siting irregularities in Ohio. Boy was I moved at the sight of the bitch senator from California shedding a tear (NOT!)

Now the local Dem's are getting what they asked for (sort of). The State is saying they never want to be embarised again by this kind of thing. But now choosing a voting method becomes a local control issue and the state is trying to blackmail the local areas.

WELL if the state is to keep from being a national embarisment, it had better get the various local folks to adopt uniform voting methods.

Message to Dem's.....you can't have it both ways.

[Robert357]

I am beginning to feel that Democrats, realizing that they have fallen out of power and never will hold the majority in the federal Senate and House along with probably not being able to find an electable Presidential candidate, have a plan.

Their plan is to institutionalize areas of election protest in all future elections so they will have some shot at publicity and some way of staying connected to historic voter groups, even though they will no longer be able to deliver past "pork" and government money.

[Polyxene]

I have lived in Clermont County, Ohio for 12 years, and this is the ballot we have used all 12 years! It is a fill-in-the-dot scantron sheet. Very easy -- no hanging chads. Just fill in the dot with the pencil they give you, and voila! You have voted! Don't see what the problem is.

[drt1]

"This flies in the face of decades of tradition and law in Ohio that say local counties choose their own voting systems,"

This is a recipe for election chaos - Something the Dems would love since it would allow them to use Wash St. type tactics to steal elections. While a statewide standard for voting machines may fly in the face of "Decades of tradition" I think opposition to it flies in the face of COMMON SENSE.

[RtWngr]

So the democrats lose in 2000 and whine because their voters are incapable of punching a card or blackening a box or an oval - they wanted machines. Fine. They got their machines. Now they don't like the machines because they cannot prove what the actual votes were without the original paper ballot. Now they want paper again. It doesn't matter what is used. If they lose it will be because of the process, not their lack of support. Someone too stupid to punch a card or blacken a ballor or make an "X" deserves to be "disenfranchised" IMHO.