PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Recount to Take Place in Ohio
by Quinten Wednesday, Dec. 01, 2004 at 12:04 AM
quinten@indypgh.org (email address validated)

Green Party and Libertarian campaigns are joining together to demand a recount in Ohio, and have started the official process necessary for it to begin.

A recount of the November 2nd election results in every county in Ohio will take place, thanks to the presidential campaigns of Green Party canidate David Cobb and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik, although it is not certain that it will be completed in time. From thousands of individual contributions they have jointly raised a total of more than 250 thousand dollars for the recount. The presidential campaign of John Kerry has not contributed any money to the event, despite having a reserve of 10 million dollars in campaign funds that was allocated for any necessary post-election legal issues.

113 thousand dollars of the Cobb/Badnarik funds will go directly to Ohio to pay for the recount, while the rest is being used to organize volunteers from all over the country who continue to sign up every day to help the recount effort.

Bush's honorary campaign co-chair in Ohio and Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has said that election results will be certified on or about December 6th, only one week before the electoral college meets and finalizes the vote for President. Under Ohio law, a recount can only take place after the election results are finalized. The David Cobb campaign challenged those rules, asking the Ohio courts to make provisions for the recount to begin early in order to finish before the December 13 deadline, but in a decision last week that request was denied.

In a rally on Sunday in Ohio, the Reverend Jesse Jackson called on the Ohio Supreme Court to set aside the results of the November 2nd election, and said that Congress should investigate the evidence of widespread voting problems.
New problems have continued to be discovered in Ohio, including turnout exceeding 100 percent in some counties. That figure, widely circulated on the Internet, turned out to be a glitch, according to Jane Platten, administrator for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. Platten was quoted in the Akron, Ohio Beacon Journal as saying that the unusual totals were caused by a software bug that caused some absentee ballots to be added to the wrong precinct's total for turnout -- the bug did not affect the counting of the number of votes allocated to each candidate.

In Franklin County where the Ohio State Capitol is located, a document request has revealed that more than 68 voting machines that could have been used to compensate for the high but expected voter turnout were not used. In some heavily Democratic precincts, lines exceeded 10 hours, while Democratic Party partisans allege that there were more polling places and fewer lines in heavily Republican areas of the county.

Meanwhile, the massive freedom of information request by the group "Black Box Voting" that we reported on our last show continues. The group has made a request for the electronic voting machine records in 3,000 counties across the country, saying that electronic voting machines security is inadequate and questions remain about their accuracy. Several Florida counties have yet to comply with the FOIA request in the time required by Florida's extensive Freedom of Information laws.

A protest for electoral reform is set for this weekend in Columbus, Ohio. The protest will take place on Saturday, December 4th, at Ohio Statehouse Broad and High Streets, from 1:00 to 4:00 PM, and is organized by the Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections.

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