http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...EWS01/610110343

They have darn good reason to question it!

By Julie Carr Smyth
Associated Press

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COLUMBUS - About half of Ohioans expressed great confidence that their vote would be fairly counted, but Democrats were far less sure about it than Republicans, a poll released Tuesday shows.

The survey, sponsored by the University of Akron's Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, came Tuesday as critics of Ohio's election process appended a new civil rights charge to their pending lawsuit: new voter ID requirements coming this fall are discriminatory.

Lawsuits, protests and complaints by mostly Democratic elected officials have called the state's election procedures into question since President Bush won Ohio's electoral votes to clinch a tight contest with Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

The Republican president's victory in a state where the GOP held a virtual lock on state government and the chief elections official Ken Blackwell is a Republican made many Democrats skeptical of the outcome. They also criticized the fact that the chief executive of the Diebold Inc., which makes many of Ohio's voting machines, was a Bush supporter.

Four years later, just over 53 percent of respondents to the poll expressed great confidence that ballot counting will be fair this year, while another 31 percent expressed some confidence, 11 percent little confidence and 5 percent no confidence in the system.

Broken down by party, however, the numbers are a bit different. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans expressed great confidence their ballot will be fairly counted, compared to 43 percent of independents and 39 percent of Democrats.

Candice Hoke, director of the Center for Election Integrity at Cleveland State University, said the numbers highlight the importance of public education campaigns in the last weeks of the 2006 campaign.

"It's crucial for people to turn out to vote, and it's crucial for (county) boards of elections to inform voters about the steps they are taking to make sure that their vote is going to count," said Hoke, who is overseeing the public monitor process in Cuyahoga County.

She said that county's board, which has experienced some of the most significant snags in the state, is allowing a pair of audits and opening the process and the results to more public scrutiny to reassure voters and stop future problems.

The poll, conducted by the Center for Marketing & Opinion Research of Canton, surveyed 1,073 people - including 477 likely voters - by telephone from Aug. 20 through Sept. 29., a survey period that is longer than many polls.

The sampling margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.