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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector-Recount efforts in Ohio by Kerry intensify
by Adam Stone
A top-ranking official with Democratic Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign told North County News last week that although unlikely, there is a recount effort being waged that could unseat Republican President George W. Bush.
"We have 17,000 lawyers working on this, and the grassroots accountability couldn't be any higher -no (irregularity) will go unchecked. Period," Kerry spokesman David Wade said.
A verbal firestorm erupted last week between an area supporter of independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Wade after the Kerry spokesman derided Nader for creating a "phony wedge issue between progressives."
Nader has been calling on Kerry and his vice presidential running mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, to, in his words, "follow through on their post-election promise to the American people to make sure every vote counts, starting in Ohio."
A Kerry victory in Ohio means he would have the necessary electoral votes to take the White House.
The local Nader supporter, Don DeBar, an Ossining resident, took umbrage with Wade's remarks.
"It seems to me the (wedge) was created when Kerry, after promising to ensure that every vote would count, conceded before they were counted," DeBar, who worked for the Nader campaign in San Antonio during the ballot access drive, wrote in an e-mail message to Wade.
The Kerry spokesman said, so far, "there hasn't been any indication" of swinging a state or the overall election.
"�But we'll make sure every single vote is counted," he added.
Nader press secretary Kevin Zeese said "I'm laughing," after being informed of Wade's remark about creating a wedge issue.
"They used those same 17,000 lawyers to keep us off the ballots," Zeese said during a telephone interview.
Wade said Nader "should be working with Democrats to guarantee the right to vote is protected."
During a flurry of e-mail exchanges with Wade, DeBar said, "What about the concession? If there are sufficient indicia of fraud and/or inaccurate counting, will Kerry 'unconcede'?"
Former Vice President Al Gore conceded in his 2000 battle with Bush for the White House before demanding recounts, which were ultimately halted by the United States Supreme Court.
Two third-party presidential candidates have raised enough money to file for an official recount of the vote in Ohio.
Green Party candidate David Cobb announced Monday the $113,600 needed to file for a recount had been raised.
"Thanks to the thousands of people who have contributed to this effort, we can say with certainty that there will be a recount in Ohio," Cobb said in a statement.
The Green Party has been working with the Libertarian Party - both parties were on the ballot in Ohio - in securing a recount. Both Cobb and Libertarian Michael Badnarik say they've demanded that Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who co-chaired this year's Bush campaign in Ohio, recuse himself from the recount process.
Cobb Media Director Blair Bobier said, "The Ohio presidential election was marred by numerous press and independent reports of mismarked and discarded ballots, problems with electronic voting machines and the targeted disenfranchisement of African-American voters."
The Ohio vote will be certified on Dec. 3 at the latest, Bobier said.
The Electoral College votes on December 13, so it is unclear whether or not a recount would be completed by then.
However, Jonathan Turley, a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, told WorldNetDaily.com that "those votes are not opened by Congress until Jan. 6. So there is still time to challenge the results in Ohio."
A demand for a recount in Ohio can only be filed by a presidential candidate who was either a certified write-in candidate or on the ballot in that state.
Bush won Ohio by a vote of 2,796,147 to John Kerry's 2,659,664. Despite reports of irregularities and outstanding provisional ballots, Kerry conceded Ohio and the election on November 3.
In the 11 Ohio counties that have finished checking provisional ballots cast in the presidential election, 81 percent have turned out to be valid. It is too early to know whether the ballots have benefited Bush or Kerry because counties first need to determine their validity before conducting the count.
Badnarik received 14,331 votes in Ohio and Cobb, as a write-in candidate, received 24 votes.
When asked about how the Kerry campaign has reacted to Nader's efforts, Zeese said, "You've got the closest thing to a response," referring to the comments made by Wade to North County News.
According to a November 5 article by the Associated Press, elections officials admitted that an error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Franklin County reported Bush with 4,258 votes and John Kerry with 260, even though only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Election officials in that county now say a cartridge from a voting machine generated errors after the precinct closed, and only 365 people voted for Bush, Nader notes in a press release.
Additional machine errors in Ohio reported by VotersUnite.org, include:
� Mahoning County: The glass on top of one electronic screen was too far from the screen, making it difficult for people to use their fingers to cast ballots. A screen went blank on a Youngstown voter while he cast his ballot.
� Mahoning County: 20 to 30 machines needed to be recalibrated during the voting process because some votes for a candidate were being counted for that candidate's opponent.
� Mahoning County: About a dozen machines needed to be reset because they essentially froze.
� Cincinnati: Problems with punch card voting machines delayed the start of voting for up to an hour Tuesday morning at a suburban precinct. Voters were unable to slide their punch-card ballots all the way into any of the six voting machines that had all evidently been damaged in transit.
� Columbus: Overcharged batteries on Danaher Controls ELECTronic 1242 systems kept machines from booting up properly at the beginning of the day.
The resulting delays, combined with higher voter turnout, resulted in lines of several hours, in one case 22 hours, and led to some citizens' voting rights being taken away by administrative default, Nader contends.
The situation in Ohio and other states bears out, according to Nader, what he warned against before the election.
Among them:
Computers are inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction and malicious tampering.
Paperless electronic voting machines make it impossible to safeguard the integrity of the vote.
"However, the Democratic National Committee has remained silent on the issue since Election Day," Nader's press release states. "Neither the DNC web site nor the Ohio Democratic Party site offered any response or any advice to voters on where to turn."
"With the extensive pre-election effort to prevent election fraud, including international observers, activist poll watchers and attempts to enforce paper trail backups, the Democratic Party's silence on Ohio is puzzling," Nader stated.More- http://www.northcountynews.com/view.asp?s=11-17-04/news5.htm
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