Free Republic

~EXCERPT~ CINCINNATI — Ohio’s effort to clean up its voting system before the presidential primary on March 4 has pitted state election leaders against local officials over an order to provide a paper ballot to any voter who requests one. Secretary of State Jennifer L. Brunner, a Democrat, wants to eliminate touch-screen machines for the November election from the 53 counties that still use them and install optical scan machines to provide a paper trail. Because the conversion cannot be completed in time for the primary in most counties, Ms. Brunner ordered the printing of paper ballots as an interim...

Here’s a burning question no one is asking: Whither John F. Kerry? He is his party’s most recent presidential nominee. He came tantalizingly close to winning. And yet no one is looking for him to put his stamp on the 2008 Democratic primary or wondering aloud who he’ll endorse — even though Al Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile says that in the early-state contests, “most of the voters would be thrilled to know who Kerry would back and why.” But the lack of an audible clamor for an endorsement by Kerry is more than a bit deceiving, as is the...