Vindication for Ohio

Editorial   Cincinnati Post   30 December 2004

The 2004 Ohio presidential election is destined to provide fodder for conspiracy theorists, graduate students and political junkies for generations to come. Already there is a cult convinced that George Bush stole the election and that John Kerry conceded it way too soon.

For the record, the official recount ended Tuesday. It uncovered no grievous problems with the vote count, no evidence of fraud, no major irregularities that didn't have a logical explanation. The recount gave Bush an additional 449 votes and Democratic candidate John Kerry another 734. Bush wound up carrying Ohio by 118,457 votes out of 5.8 million cast a tight election, but not the closest in Ohio history.

Even the minor party candidates who forced the recount putting up $113,600 for a process that cost more than $1.5 million appeared satisfied with the result. "The intention was always to verify whether there were anomalies in the voting process,'' Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik told the Associated Press. "The purpose of the recount was not to change the outcome.''

But even though the recount is finished, and even though Ohio's presidential electors have already cast their 20 votes for Bush, the challenge isn't over.

A group of 37 Ohio voters, backed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson of Illinois, have filed a complaint with Ohio Chief Justice Thomas Moyer asking that the election results be overturned. The complaint alleges a host of flaws with the election, ranging from long lines at polling places in inner city neighborhoods to results that did not square with exit polls.

The odds they will succeed appear to be slim.

It would be an outrage for Moyer, acting on his own, to overturn the election without overwhelming, credible proof of fraud or that the election process was hopelessly fouled. Exit polling is mighty thin basis for such an extraordinary challenge, and it's unlikely the plaintiffs will be able to provide the court with a factual justification for such a drastic step. And, as Moyer himself suggested in a query to the attorneys in the case, the impact of any decision he might now render is unclear since the Ohio electors have already voted.

If they don't turn into witch hunts and that's a big "if'' in some instances some useful examinations of Ohio's 2004 election might come from other sources.

The Congressional Budget Office has signaled an intention to launch a probe, as has U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and the Democratic National Committee. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, created in 2002 as part of the federal Help America Vote Act (passed by Congress in the wake of the debacle in Florida's 2000 presidential election) is also preparing a report and will surely focus heavily on Ohio.

At this juncture, it appears there are several areas that deserve closer examination:

? Whether there was a systemic reason for the instances not just in Democratic precincts, but in heavily Republican areas as well where voters had to stand in line for hours to cast a vote. Even in a hotly contested presidential election with a large number of new voters, that shouldn't happen.

? Whether there should be wider federal rules governing election procedures. This year, for example, the courts upheld an Ohio statute requiring that provisional ballots be cast only in the correct precinct. But other states have less stringent procedures, some, for example, allowing provisional ballots to be cast anywhere in the voters' county of residence.

? Whether Congress ought to revisit the standards established in the Help America Vote Act (its response to the Florida debacle of 2000) to broaden their reach particularly as they apply to electronic voting machines. Legitimate questions have been raised about the security of such machines, and about the need for a "paper trail'' to back up the electronic tally.