Ohio counties finish official ballot counts

by M.R. KROPKO

CLEVELAND - President Bush’s unofficial margin of victory in Ohio is safe, after the remaining 10 counties in this battleground state finished ballot certification Wednesday and results showed there were fewer provisional ballots validated than the margin.

Ohio’s 88 counties reported validating 121,598 provisional ballots from 156,977 checked, according to an Associated Press tabulation.

Bush’s margin of victory on Nov. 2 was 136,483 votes. He received 2,796,147 votes to Kerry’s 2,659,664. Kerry conceded after figuring that he would not get enough of the provisional ballot vote to overtake Bush’s total.

The state previously reported there were 155,337 provisional ballots statewide. Provisionals are votes cast when poll workers could not immediately confirm if a voter was properly registered.

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell plans to certify the final result on Monday.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell’s office, said there will be no available breakdown of how many provisionals went to Bush or Kerry. He said the final tally will be inclusive of all votes, including valid provisionals and absentee votes not previously counted.

The 10 counties that certified vote results Wednesday validated 35,289 of 45,952, or 77 percent, matching the overall percentage.

In Franklin County, which includes Columbus, 12,125 of 14,462 provisional ballots, or 84 percent, were declared valid.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said Kerry had 54 percent of the total vote, or 285,500 to 237,252 for Bush. Kerry’s lead in the county widened by 7,171 votes from the unofficial results, largely because a computer glitch on election night recorded an extra 3,893 votes for Bush in one precinct.

Disks from that precinct, in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna, all had the correct total and workers have been unable to reproduce the error, Damschroder said.

The rest of the change was due to a Kerry advantage in overseas absentee ballots and provisional votes, he said.

Meanwhile, a lawyer representing at least 25 voters who feel their right to vote was violated was completing a lawsuit that will be filed Thursday directly to the Ohio Supreme Court. Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney, said the case will seek to document that election abuses were widespread.

Arnebeck said he had represented the group Alliance for Democracy on election issues for past four years and is on the board of that organization. He said the lawsuit will request that the court make a projection of what the vote total should have been where there were abuses.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday that the Ohio Supreme Court should consider setting aside Bush’s win in Ohio and that Congress should investigate how Ohioans voted. Arnebeck said Wednesday that Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition might become part of the suit.

LoParo said the allegations in the planned lawsuit "are absurd" and that county election boards in Ohio "are bipartisan entities that conduct elections in a fair and transparent manner."

Meanwhile, Green Party candidate David Cobb has asked a federal judge in Columbus to overturn a ruling by a Delaware County judge denying Cobb’s request for a recount. In addition, the Kerry campaign has asked the Delaware County court to be included in the case. (AP)

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10315219.htm?1c