Posted on 12/30/2004 6:25:14 PM PST by areafiftyone
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.
Idiots...
Even Kerry doesn't want to be bothered with these nutjobs!
Of course, a majority of these left-wing bloggers—and a number of fringe lefties nationwide—refuse to wave the white flag and concede Ohio (even though Kerry already has)
Moon bats...
Ohio isn't Washington. It's no wonder these morons run as useless third party candidates. They make Kerry look like a genius which we know he isn't.
Barking, even.
I feel like saying it again.
Idiots...
RECOUNT?!!! For what?!!!
Nope they don't want to give it up. I guess all that group therapy did nothing to help them. On January 6th they are planning a demonstration in Washington D.C. and Jessie "Shakedown" Jackson is supposed to be there.
I hope misguided FReepers who voted for Badnarik in the last election take note and will know better next time.
Wow, the Libertarians, Democrats and Greens sure can be proud of their leaders. They've already wasted at least $1 million, and they want to waste some more. Outstanding.
I see dead people!
You would think that they would be saving up their money for the next presidential election, but no, let them blow hundred of thousands of dollars recounting votes that will not change anything. But then again, I would expect this from the ignorant left.
It cost the Ohio taxpayer 1.5 million to do the first one. If they try this again, someone will send Uncle Vito to have a talk with them.
Pandering to DUmmies.
/yawn
It is past time to hold these idiots in contempt of court for frivolous law suits.
But the vote difference in Ohio is on the order of 120,000 votes. What exactly to they expect to change?
Moonbats.
Ahh...as anoter poster so aptly put it, "it's the gift that keeps on giving!"
The DUmmies must be posting "YES!!!!!" a dozen times a second. I am taking bets on what time the "Hey, wait a minute..." moment happens and they all go back to being depressed. I'm saying 10:42 PM Eastern Time tonight.
I think y'all expressed my outrage!
It ain't close, the recount was done by the books, and now they want to change the rules.
PLEASE SOMEBODY MAKE'EM STOP!!! ALREADY!
Ok sorry! I understand now. They want the recount, recounted cause, the recounted recount, wasnt properly counted in the first recount, therefore this recount needs to be filed again accuratly so as not to put forth a fraudelent count of the originally recounted counts invalidating ballots that still need to be accurately totaled to the first count of the recounted votes that never got added to the original second and third count of the recounted votes that.....................
Right now the DUmmies are all excited about the Conyers letter that was sent to the Senators to Object to Ohio Electors. They think another Senator will actually be stupid enought to lose constituants by doing that. If that Senator does that they will never be elected to another term. Kieth Olberman was talking about this on his "gotta suck up to my DU fans cause they are the only ones who will watch me" show tonight.
If I were the judge, I'd give them 24hours to name names of those workers who altered votes. Then I'd turn that information over to the aledged vote changers so that they could sue for liable.
Rossi wants a new election in Washington State. He's not giving up!
Exactly. Once the counting stops Fraud takes a holiday.
But as long as they can keep the counting going on, they can still attempt to sneak in some extra ballots.
I suspect they EXPECT this to be thrown out so they can continue makeing silly claims.
Even if they got a senator(s) to sign on, what's there to get excited about? Sure, they get their mental masturbation and really get to turn on the theatrics, but Bush still ends up winning. Are they so ill-informed that they think all it takes is an objection to take place to deny Bush the presidency? If so, they're even more stupid than I thought. They don't have the votes in Congress and simply cannot prevail as a result.
Now the recount was rigged!
Where are the men in the white coats.
The FUnniest part of this is that the ones that are calling for the recount have no grounds. While the one the DUmmies think has grounds, hasn't called for a recount. He's too busy spending his wife's $$$$$....
We Freepers know that and to be honest about one or two DUers know it but they are considered trolls for thinking that way. 98% of the DUers are living in a dream world!
Now the recount was rigged!
Where are the men in the white coats.
If they really believe the count and the recount was rigged (and aren't just pretending to to make hay), what's the use of even bothering asking for yet another recount, won't we just "rig" that one too?
These people need more than just men in white coats, they all need to get a lobotomy.
I think some of the DUmmies really believe it, and I also think some of them KNOW that Bush won but do not care and want to dicate the results THEY want, the majority of voters be damned.
Why should candidates who have absolutely no chance of winning the election have standing to request a recount. The Green and Libertarian candidates combined only got 26,600 votes which is about a fifth of the difference between Bush and Kerry in Ohio. I think only the parties who have an actual shot at winning the recount should have standing to file a suit to request a recount.
There's plenty of boldness going around here in WA. I'm here, and I'm hip-deep in it.
I don't know what Rossi's next steps are going to be. To move from where we are we need a foothold in the law. That's the difference between us and them.
Yes, they have (possibly, but not yet proven, stay tuned) done illegal things in their zeal to steal this election. But we will not go outside the law ourselves. If there is anything that can be lawfully done, it will be done. You can take *that* to the bank.
Whatever these guys are smoking, I don't want any.
As long as they keep counting they can also ''find ''a box of ''uncounted'' ballots in the dead of night in an abandoned warehouse and add them to the count to get Lurch over the top! Doesnt matter if the ballots are all registered to ''homeless'' people that don't really exist and use the courthouse as their address, doesnt matter at all!
Court: "Gentlemen - I have heard and considered your arguments. Motion denied. Now go screw yourselves."
Whiny libs trying to manipulate our legal system to rob us of a political election? How unheard of!
Won't happen, the most they could possibly hope to get away with would be coming up with a few hundred, or, at most a few thousand "undiscovered" ballots. And if that did happen, each county board of elections would have to get at least one republican member to agree that it is a valid vote for Kerry for it to be added to his total. There was an article here a few weeks ago about how the dems in one county (can't remember which) wanted 459 invalid provisional ballots to be counted, but they couldn't get one republican board member to agree, so they were not counted, as they shouldn't be.
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