who has been checking in on Ohio:
The more interesting suit seems to be the one in Hamilton County involving
the provisional ballot fight using Bush Vs. Gore as the precedent. Spokesman
for the Ohio Department of State says they will fight the lawsuit, but won’t
worry about it until after the election. Can’t say if the individual filing
the suit is a Dem because opensecrets.org is down due to high traffic. Of
course, the Dems hinted that they’d use the provisional ballot issue in this
state as the main hammer, but we thought it would come AFTER the election,
not before. Ohio govt can be expected to fight vigorously that its
provisional ballot handling is uniform and fair.
Ohio State Dept. also says that a record turnout of about 5.8 million people
is expected. From the look at the early returns, that is not good for Kerry.
McAuliffe is complaining that the long lines in Ohio are the fault of
Republicans not installing enough voting machines. State of Ohio scoffs at
that. McAullife says people are still waiting in line in Ohio, and now it’s
cold!!!! State of Ohio says that’s odd, since the 3-hour long line in
Franklin County (Columbus area) was dissolved instantly and painlessly when
those outside were handed paper ballots to fill out. (Gee, who’d have thunk
common sense would win out in Ohio. Clearly, this is no Florida). State has
no trouble with it, but GOP is expected to appeal.