Candidates Want Second Ohio Recount

[59sunburst]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2004/dec/30/123004110.html

Candidates Want Second Ohio Recount
By JAY COHEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Two third-party presidential candidates asked a federal court Thursday to force a second recount of the Ohio vote, alleging county election boards altered votes and didn't follow proper procedures in the recount that ended this week.

Lawyers for Green Party candidate David Cobb and the Libertarian Party's Michael Badnarik made their request in federal court in Columbus.

The two candidates, who received less than 0.3 percent of the Ohio vote, paid $113,600 for a statewide recount after the vote was certified earlier this month by the secretary of state. They have said they don't expect to change the election results, but want to make sure that every vote is proply counted.

Ohio and its 20 electoral votes tipped the race to President Bush when Sen. John Kerry conceded the morning after the Nov. 2 election.

Counties finished the recount Tuesday. Bush won the state by 118,457 votes over Kerry, according to unofficial results provided to The Associated Press by the 88 counties.

"We've documented in this filing how this recount was not conducted in accordance with uniform standards throughout Ohio" as required by the U.S. Constitution, said John Bonifaz, a lawyer from the National Voting Right Institute representing the candidates.

Ohio law requires an elections board to manually recount a randomly selected 3 percent of ballots. If the totals match certified results for those precincts, all the county's votes are then machine-counted. If the hand count is off, a county must manually recount all its ballots.

The filing, part of an ongoing lawsuit originally brought by a county board of elections to stop the recount, alleges counties did not randomly select precincts for the manual recount and some workers altered votes to prevent a full hand count.

Bonifaz said the filing is based on the experiences of Green Party representatives who observed the recount.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, called the contentions "baseless accusations."

"The ballots were counted in Ohio, they were counted again, they were recounted. The election is over," LoParo said.

--

[Skink]

1. I'm starting to like Green.

Still hate Libertarians, although sometimes they have a point.

[Spinzonner]

2. Sounds like LoParo is using Jim Bakers script

ask him for his home address so we will know where to serve the subpeonas and where to have the authorities pick him up for election fraud, lying, and other assorted felonies.

He and Blackwell can share a cell.

[IndyOp]

3. I cannot believe they want a recount -- unless they demand 100% hand

recounts this time. Even then a lot of their completely accurate complaints about the recount is that the 'chain of custody' for machines and ballots was broken. Machines were adjusted/repaired by Triad and Diebold. Ballots in most counties were not stored in a manner to prevent tampering. If they recount and don't show massive discrepancies as a result of tampering then they loose face.

:eyes:

[59sunburst]

4. Could They Be Aiming for the Supremes?

Maybe this is an effort to set a national uniform re-count standard?

[IndyOp]

6. Aren't they getting ahead of themselves by trying to set a nation

uniform recount standard when we don't even have a nation uniform counting standard?!?!

Don't mind me, I've spent the day reading the county-by-county recount posts at the Vote Cobb website -- lots of information to boil down...

:eyes:

[many a good man]

14. I think they mean

Ohio failed to honor its own mandate that a uniform standard be followed throughout the state. If a crooked state breaks its own laws there must be a way to seek restitution at the federal level.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Amaryllis]

7. Revote, revote!

[illflem]

5. Third time was the charm in Washington State

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Patsy Stone]

10. James A. Baker III? Is it you?

disguised in a LoParo costume?

"The ballots were counted in Ohio, they were counted again, they were recounted."

OK, call me nuts, but the spin is now about to kick in hard.

[jimfromthebronx10469]

13. pat,would that be the same james baker 111 who...

in april 01'stated at a meeting with other energy giants,u.s. warhawks ken lay and some communications ceo's that the timely advance of P-NAC will be slow ABSENT some catastropic and catalyizing event like a new perle harbor...unfortunately for the dead of 911 P-NAC got their event.:evilfrown: :evilfrown: :evilfrown: :evilfrown: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :hi: :dem:

[Patsy Stone]

15. It would indeed be the same "Douchebag of Liberty"

Also, the one who's law firm is representing the Saudi defense minster against the families of the victims of 9/11 in a lawsuit.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3067906/

[livvy]

21. Good Gravy, Miss Mavy!

Damn, all these people are wrapped so tightly, they'd make a slinky jealous!
"Baker Botts, Sultan’s law firm, for example, still boasts former secretary of State James Baker as one of its senior partners. Its recent alumni include Robert Jordan, the former personal lawyer for President Bush who is now U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia."

[Patsy Stone]

27. Can you say

"cluster fuck?" :)

[FreakinDJ]

11. They will spin it .."Those Dam Dems"

They are going to be making a lot of noise before they do an honest recount

[cshupp]

12. In 2000

didn't SCOTUS base it's ruling to halt the Florida recount on some kind of argument that because it didn't follow uniform standards throughout the state it violated some voters' civil rights? I wonder if Bonifaz is shaping the GLIB suit in light of that ruling.

[Straight Shooter]

16. You can bet they'll use everything they can from bush v. gore

to their advantage. I think there were mistakes made, due to arrogance and presumption, in the entire fiasco of the lawsuit filed as bush v. gore.

My memory, faulty as it is, seems to recall that the SCOTUS said there would never again be a selection for president by the Supreme Court. Someone help me out if I'm wrong.

It's nice to see something from four years ago come sneaking around the back way and bite the Repubs in the butt.

[Patsy Stone]

17. You never can tell

What's gonna tickle the ol' SCOTUS' fancy. (Ooh, that sounded dirtier than I would have liked.)

But I don't think they're in the mood. Plus, it was a "One Day Only Sale."

[meganmonkey]

19. LOL -

That whole post is somehow absurd, especially out of context. It's like a quadruple entendre. And it makes me think of the naked SCOTUS Justices in the John Stewart book. :P

[Patsy Stone]

28. LOL

I know, ewwww.

[bobbieinok]

23. Bush vs Gore...SCOTUS said the decision COULD NOT be used as

a precedent......an immediate clue that the ruling was fishy

[cshupp]

30. But this incident is different . . .

In 2000 the SC said it stopped the recount because lack of uniform standards violated the equal protection clause. Now Bonifaz is arguing that the first recount violated the equal protection clause and so must be repeated under a uniform set of standards in order to be valid.

As I understand it, in 2000 the SC held that even though its ruling effectively determined the election's outcome, this wasn't its intent but rather an unavoidable by product of its decision to halt the recount because lack of uniform standards violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Since the resolving disputed elections is explicitly a congressional responsibility, the court made it clear that it was not not establishing a precedent that would usurp the power of the legislative branch.

Bonifaz isn't asking the federal court to settle an electoral college dispute; he's asking it to rule on a matter of constitutional law.

[Firespirit]

18. Is this one of those things where they must prove

irreparable harm (OK, can do) and a substantial chance of success on the merits?

Or does it stand on its own, since they paid for a valid recount and laws were broken in its conduct?

Whichever, I'm happy that they aren't letting it go away.

[k8conant]

20. Kerry needs to join this also for success on the merits...

or is he already joined?

[garybeck]

22. he will....

if the case gets stalled on the "irreperable harm" clause, you can bet that Kerry's team will file a motion. they have before.

gary

[livvy]

24. Just keep the pressure up.

I'm glad they're doing this also. Poke, poke, prod, prod, it's not going to be so easy this time *&Co! If nothing else, it keeps the momentum going, the questions flowing, and further exposure of what's going on. Every time Cobb and Badnarik are dissed by the courts, it just raises more suspicions. And the question rings out louder...What are they hiding?

[The Judged]

25. Looks like * & ^;^ will be reselected, but this time by Congress!

Ohio's electoral votes are about to cross the threshold of legitimacy into oblivion.

On January 6th, 2005, if not sooner, the world will know what we now know: Ohio's election results did not meet the standard of an election in a 3rd world country, and the Congress will reluctantly have to step away from them and conduct its own vote to select the winners of the presidential and vice presidential elections.

Of course, * & ^;^ will be reselected, but this time by Congress!

Talk about a mandate!

Talk about dissidents!

Talk about MSM being independent!

Talk about wild conspiracy theories!

Talk about the liberal activist judiciary and MSM!

Talk about Rove being a genius!

Talk about the truth, for a change!

[Liberty Belle]

26. Why isn't Kerry signed onto this, too?

[fearnobush]

29. Nothing is baseless in the eye's of Kathy Blackwell's Fraud.

Sometimes - I really wish they could burn at the stake.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, called the contentions "baseless accusations."

"The ballots were counted in Ohio, they were counted again, they were recounted. The election is over," LoParo said.

[berniew1]

31. Here's a fairly typical Green Recount report: no real recount done

Affidavit
I, Witness P., want to state for the record that there were several serious problems with this recount in Champaign county on 15 Dec 2004. I believe that the recount for this county should be declared incomplete due to policies and actions by the office of the Secretary of State as detailed in the following problems.

First, I want to state that all the personnel were courteous and pleasant at all times. Further, I felt they were reasonably well informed and were doing things as their board and the Secretary of State wanted them.

There was no random selection of three percent of precincts. The precinct was chosen well before we arrived, probably days earlier because they were using printed tally sheets with the precinct Salem North printed at the top. I pointed out the importance of a random selection and explained how to do that by writing names of precincts on paper and putting them into a hat or bowl for the selection. They commented that making the selection that way they could wind up with a precinct that was too small and have to choose a second. I reiterated that I understood that could happen but random selection was important and that if they proceeded without making a random selection of precincts I would highlight that in my report. Without a truly random selection of precincts, the precincts that would be subject to a recount are easily predictable and the value of using a recount of a small portion to ensure accuracy throughout is useless. I think this is an easy concept for people to appreciate and that just about everyone connected with the BOE understands it intuitively.
The ballots were not stored in sealed containers. They were stored in latched tin containers in the same room where the counting machine is kept. The room may have been locked at night.
The signature book was not made available even though I requested it several times. Director Burden called the SOS office for clarification around 3:00 PM and still did not let me see them. She told me that I could never see it. At any rate, I needed it right away; without the signature book, I could not confirm how many people actually arrived to vote.
I was not allowed to see the absentee ballot envelopes that may have arrived late or had some other problem with them. I was given only a verbal count of how many absentee ballots were sent out and how many were returned.
I was not allowed to see any provisional ballot that was rejected. I was not allowed to see a summary of rejected provisional ballots.
In every case that I could not see documents that were necessary, I was told that I could see them after January 10, 2005, per orders of the Secretary of State. I believe the Champaign county BOE offices were orderly and everything seemed to be proper, to the credit of Dir. Burden and Dep. Dir. Nash.

Witness M. is also willing to sign an identical affidavit.

[berniew1]

32. They hand counted much less than 3% per Green Report

One small precinct of 572 voters