Judge Rules Ohio Recount Can Start, but Late - Kerry not a Plaintiff

Keep it up. Losers crying and beating their fists on the wall looks really great to the rest of the country that has moved on. Sore losers are not good company, and people don't want to hear it anymore.

Depending on how one chooses to look at it, victims of rape, robbery and other crimes could be "losers." Robbers, rapists and other criminals could be considered virile, clever, daring, etc. in short, call them "winners." Victims who seek justice could be called "whiners," and should perhaps be told to shut up and move on with their lives.

Does anyone agree with such perverse logic? Probably not, except in the case of election fraud. The rightwingers would advise us to surrender our democracy without a peep.

We had an election. As hard as Jesse Jackson and other hucksters try to tell us, it was not stolen. It was not fraudulent. People voted. Some people messed up their ballots. Some people always do. Sorry, but you're just going to have to move on and work on the next one, because this one is over.

for appearances sake, the Democrats jump into the ring after the referee declares the match over

note how the failure of the Democrats to make an issue of the Ohio election prior to certification has freed the Republicans to completely disregard any subsequent findings as, in the words of the White House press secretary, it was "free and fair"

[Ohio certifies Bush as the winner by nearly 119,000 votes
ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Writer

Monday, December 6, 2004


(12-06) 15:12 PST COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) --

This battleground state on Monday certified President Bush's 119,000-vote victory over John Kerry, even as the Kerry campaign and third-party candidates prepared to demand a statewide recount.

The president won Ohio with 2.86 million votes, or 51 percent, to Kerry's 2.74 million votes, or 49 percent.

The 118,775-vote lead was closer than the unofficial election night margin of 136,000, but not enough to trigger a mandatory recount. Absentee ballots and provisional votes counted after election night made most of the difference.

"This was an election where you have some glitches but none of these glitches were of a conspiratorial nature and none of them would overturn or change the election results," said Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who, as the state's chief election official, certified the results.

The presidential election hung on Ohio, prized for its 20 electoral votes. Not until the morning after the election did Kerry finally concede -- realizing there were not enough provisional ballots to erase Bush's lead.

But critics have cited numerous Election Day problems, from long lines, a shortage of voting machines in predominantly minority neighborhoods and suspicious vote totals for candidates in scattered precincts.

The Kerry campaign last week joined the presidential candidates for the Green and Libertarian parties who are asking for a recount. The candidates, who received less than 0.5 percent of the Ohio vote, planned to file their requests Tuesday. The Kerry camp is not disputing the outcome of the race, but wants to ensure that every vote is counted.

A ruling by a federal judge in Columbus on Friday rejected one county's attempt to stop a recount, avoiding a legal precedent that could have stopped other recounts. Green and Libertarian party candidates have already raised the required $113,600 for the recounts.

Republicans said conducting a recount is pointless.

"If there's a recount, there's going to be two losers -- John Kerry and the Ohio taxpayer," said Mark Weaver, a lawyer representing the Ohio Republican Party. "It's going to cost more than $1.5 million to find out what we already know."

The amount the independent candidates have raised is based on state law calculating the cost of a recount to be $10 a precinct, but Blackwell's office has said a more realistic price tag is $1.5 million.

About 20 people protested outside Blackwell's office Monday, demanding Blackwell postpone the Dec. 13 electoral college vote in Ohio until the recount is finished. Blackwell said the vote will take place.

Keith Cunningham, vice president of the state election boards association, bristled at suggestions that the election was plagued by fraud or widespread error.

"To actually assert that elections officials in Ohio have intentionally done something is beyond insulting," he said Monday. "I know election officials all over the state -- it's just fantasy run wild."

The Democratic Party also said Monday it will examine reports of voting problems in Ohio.

Outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said the party will spend "whatever it takes" to study complaints from Ohio voters.

McAuliffe said the study will be conducted by nonpartisan experts to be announced later, with a report issued in the spring that recommends reforms to prevent such problems in the future.

Blackwell oversaw the election process while serving as one of several statewide GOP leaders who co-chaired Bush's campaign. The 2000 Florida recount was also administered by a Republican secretary of state, Katherine Harris, who is now a member of Congress.

In a conference call with reporters, McAuliffe said the panel needs to look at the practice of secretaries of state serving as campaign officials. He said he personally thinks it's a laudable goal for election officials to be nonpartisan.

When asked if the president supports an investigation into voting irregularities in Ohio, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the election "was viewed as very free and fair."

"It was a clear victory for the president of the United States," McClellan said. "Now is the time for us to all look forward on how we can work together to get things done."]

The Bushites stole the election of 2000. Since then Bush has lied and cheated on everything from WMDs to military discharge. Meanwhile, during the years and months leading up to the 2004 election, Bush supporters laid the ground work for another round of massive fraud. But does this suggest that fraud may have occurred during the election itself?

Of course not! I truly believe that at about 5 minute to midnight on the night before the Nov 2nd election, Bush finally saw the light, became honest, called off his underhand schemes, and won the election fair and square.