Go HERE now!!! This is AMAZING! Go to the "Listen Live" link on the upper right corner... thousands are in Ohio. Greg Palast is speaking now!

Protesters Gather at Ohio Statehouse
About 400 Demonstraters Demand Recount, Investigation

By JOHN McCARTHY
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, December 4, 2004; 4:19 PM

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- About 400 protesters gathered outside the Statehouse on Saturday to support a recount of the presidential election in Ohio and call for an investigation into Election Day irregularities.

Speakers addressing the crowd alleged that many voters were the victims of a fraud in which votes intended for John Kerry were given to President Bush.

"I would like to welcome you to the Ukraine," said Susan Truitt, referring to the country where a new presidential runoff election was ordered after observers said the first one was rigged.

On Friday, a federal judge in Columbus ruled that a recount may proceed if two minority party candidates who sued for it can pay for it. Green and Libertarian party officials say they can.

A recount would likely not begin before Dec. 13, when Ohio's 20 electoral votes are officially counted.

Kerry would have won the presidency had he carried the state's 20 electoral votes. He conceded the day after the election, saying there were not enough provisional and other ballots to swing the results his way.

Bush won the state by about 119,000 votes, or 2 percentage points, according to an analysis of county board of elections results by The Associated Press.

Critics say Ohio's numbers are suspect because of several irregularities on election night. Those included disparities in the vote totals for different Democrats on the same ballot and the disqualification of more than 90,000 presidential votes on punch-card ballots because the choices could not be determined. A computer glitch on election night also recorded an extra 3,893 votes for Bush in one precinct in suburban Gahanna.

"There was no doubt in my mind that Kerry had enough votes. My fear was the votes would not be counted and that's been borne out," said Melissa Hedden, one of the protesters.

State and county election officials have said there were irregularities on Nov. 2, but no more than in any other election. They adamantly have denied there is any evidence of widespread wrongdoing.

The Kerry campaign has joined the lawsuit seeking a recount. Officials said they are not disputing the outcome of the race but want to make sure any recount is "done accurately and completely."

Sooo....really, this won't change anything. What recourse do the American people have if widespread fraud is found....when the electoral college has already cast its vote?

Bush margin in Ohio slips; no recount

By The Associated Press

TOLEDO, Ohio — President Bush's victory over John Kerry in Ohio was closer than unofficial election-night totals showed, but the change is not enough to trigger an automatic recount, according to county-by-county results provided to The Associated Press yesterday.

Bush's margin of victory in the state that put him over the top in his re-election bid will be about 119,000 votes — smaller than the unofficial margin of 136,000, the county election-board figures showed.

The margin shrank primarily because of the addition of provisional ballots that were not counted on Election Day and were not included in the unofficial tally. Overseas ballots also were added to the count in all 88 counties.

And about one-quarter of Kerry's gain was the result of an electronic-voting-system glitch that gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in a suburban Columbus precinct.

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell will certify the results Monday.

The president's margin of victory was about 2 percent, not close enough to require an automatic recount. That happens only when the difference is 0.25 percent or less.

The Kerry campaign and two third-party candidates are seeking a recount. The Kerry campaign said it is not disputing the outcome of the race but wants to make sure any recount is "done accurately and completely."

A Delaware County judge last week sided with elections officials who argued that a recount was a waste of time and money, but a federal judge overturned the decision yesterday.

However, the third-party candidates' request for an immediate recount was rejected. A recount probably won't occur until after Ohio's electors meet Dec. 13.

all i get at that link is a water thingy

As Questions Keep Coming, Ohio Certifies Its Vote Count
By JAMES DAO and ALBERT SALVATO

Published: December 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - The Ohio secretary of state officially certified on Monday that President Bush won that swing state by roughly 119,000 votes, but an array of Democrats, third-party candidates and independent groups continued to question the results, issuing new demands for a statewide recount and a formal investigation of the vote.

Even before Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, issued the final tally, the Democratic National Committee said it would appoint an expert panel to review voting problems in Ohio - including long lines, voting machine errors and understaffed polling stations - that it said had disenfranchised voters in predominantly Democratic urban districts.

Democratic officials, walking a fine line between their angry liberal base and centrist voters who consider the election over, said they were not contesting the results. But they said they planned to use the results of their investigation, which is to be completed by the summer, to demand changes to the electoral systems in Ohio and other states.

"Like Florida in 2000, which gave us a lot of information and evidence that we used later on to improve our election system, Ohio will play that role for us this year," said Donna Brazile, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute. "There's no question that there's been a long pattern, a chilling pattern, of voter intimidation, voter suppression across the country over the years."

Lawyers for the Green Party and the Libertarian Party - supported by Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign - are also expected to file requests on Tuesday in each of Ohio's 88 counties seeking a recount, a process that could take several weeks. The Kerry camp said it was not challenging the outcome of the contest but wanted to make sure all votes were counted.

And on Wednesday, lawyers from the Alliance for Democracy, a group based in Massachusetts that advocates fair elections, plan to ask the Ohio Supreme Court to throw out the election results and declare Mr. Kerry the winner. Officials with the group, which is filing the request on behalf of 25 Ohio voters, said they would be able to demonstrate widespread irregularities and fraud in the heavily Republican counties surrounding Cincinnati.

"We will allege in the complaint that the result should have been Kerry winning," said Clifford Arnebeck, a lawyer in Columbus, Ohio, who is co-chairman of the alliance.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Mr. Blackwell, said Ohio's voting system was one of the fairest in the nation because each county board of elections includes two Democrats and two Republicans. "People would be alleging a conspiracy of both Republicans and Democrats to commit fraud," Mr. LoParo said.

Mr. Blackwell himself, who oversees the state's voting system, has been severely criticized by Democrats as making decisions that benefited Mr. Bush.

The new maneuvering comes 34 days after Mr. Kerry conceded Ohio and its 20 electoral votes to Mr. Bush, allowing the president to declare victory nationwide. At the time, Mr. Bush was leading Mr. Kerry by about 136,000 votes in Ohio, a margin Mr. Kerry's aides considered insurmountable.

The final vote count showed that the margin had shrunk to 118,775 votes, or 2 percent of the total, after absentee and provisional ballots were tabulated and some Election Day counting errors were corrected, according to the certified results released by Mr. Blackwell on Monday.

The voting in Ohio occurred under the scrutiny of squadrons of lawyers and volunteer monitors from the two major parties and several independent groups, which documented problems with long lines, errant voting machines and confused election officials.

Republicans have asserted that while there were some problems, Ohio's election was generally smooth. Asked to comment about the Democrats' calls for an investigation in Ohio, Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, called the election there "free and fair."

"The American people spoke very clearly on Nov. 2," Mr. McClellan said on Monday. "It was a clear victory for the president of the United States."

Still, many Democrats and members of third parties around the country share a perception that the Ohio election was riddled with technical problems and fraud. The anger with the results has fueled successful fund-raising drives by groups that contend widespread irregularities occurred.

The Ohio Green Party and Libertarian Party said they had raised more than $250,000 to defray the cost of recounting ballots in all 88 counties. And the Alliance for Democracy raised $108,000 through its Web site for the recount effort, Mr. Arnebeck said.

Under Ohio law, the recount must begin within 10 days of the formal request and groups calling for a recount have to pay for part of the cost.

Ohio's presidential electors are scheduled to meet next Monday to cast their votes for Mr. Bush, though it is virtually certain that the challenges and recounts will not be completed by then.

This AP story appeared elsewhere in CGCS today. A member who was actually there said the crowd was more like 1500-2000 and he would be posting pictures.

Typical for the MSM to underestimate the size of the crowd.

There has to be something the democrats can do to delay the electoral vote. We need a lawyer here.