A month later, activists still challenging vote in Ohio

By John McCarthy
The Associated Press

The Rev. Jesse Jackson has been holding Ohio rallies.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Nearly a month after John Kerry conceded Ohio to President Bush, complaints and challenges about the balloting are mounting as activists including the Rev. Jesse Jackson demand closer scrutiny to ensure the votes are being counted on the up-and-up.

Jackson has been holding rallies in Ohio in recent days to draw attention to the vote, and another critic plans to ask the state Supreme Court this week to decide the validity of the election.

Ohio essentially decided the outcome of the presidential race, with Kerry giving up after unofficial results showed Bush with a 136,000-vote lead in the state.

Since then, there have been demands for a recount and complaints about uncounted punch-card votes, disqualified provisional ballots and a ballot-machine error that gave extra votes to Bush.

Cliff Arnebeck, an attorney for Boston-based political advocacy group Alliance for Democracy, plans to file a "contest of election" tomorrow. The request requires a single Supreme Court justice to either let the election stand, declare another winner or throw the whole thing out. The loser can appeal to the full seven-member court, dominated 5-2 by Republicans.

Elections officials concede some mistakes were made but no more than most elections.

"There are no signs of widespread irregularities," said Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.

Blackwell, a Republican who along with other statewide GOP leaders was a co-chairman of Bush's re-election campaign in Ohio, has until Dec. 6 to certify the vote. The Green and Libertarian parties are raising money to pay for a recount that would be held once the results are certified.

Other critics have seized on an error in an electronic voting system that gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in a suburban Columbus precinct where only 638 people voted. The extra votes are part of the current unofficial tally, but they will not be included in the official count.

Some groups also have complained about thousands of punch-card ballots that were not counted because officials in the 68 counties that use them could not determine a vote for president. Votes for other offices on the cards were counted.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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