Ohio to Keep Counting Provisional Ballots
 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...r/ohio_ballots

Wed Nov 3, 6:26 PM ET

By MARK WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The counting of more than 150,000 provisional ballots cast in Ohio will go forward, despite John Kerry's concession that President Bush had won the state's 20 electoral votes, election officials said Wednesday.

Elections workers planned to spend the next 10 days verifying that each provisional voter lives in the precinct where he or she cast a ballot and meets age and citizenship requirements.

"The pressure is off in the eyes of the media," said Jeff La Rue, spokesman for the Franklin County Board of Elections. "The pressure to count every vote and validate every vote that is a valid vote — that pressure is never off."

Provisional ballots — required in all states for the first time this year — are used when voters believe they are properly registered but their names do not appear in registration records.

The ballots are counted later if election officials determine the voters' registrations are valid.

Kerry acknowledged Wednesday in his concession speech that the provisional votes would not be enough for him to win the state, where President Bush had a lead of 136,000 votes.

Mark Weaver, a lawyer for Ohio Republicans, predicted that election officials would throw out most of the ballots after determining the people who cast them were not eligible to vote.

Provisional ballots were the focus of an intense legal battle even before Election Day. An appeals court rejected Democrats' request that provisional ballots be counted if they are filed in the right county but the wrong precinct.

They need to count them, but Kerry would have to get over 90% of them to win. I think all models showed he would not obtain that number; that is why he conceded. But, it will be interesting to see what the final tally is. If Kerry does win based on those, maybe W will be the man he says he is and step down.

If nothing else, it should further reduce Bush's razor-thin lead in Ohio... which will give me a small measure of personal satisfaction, being a Buckeye state native. (And yes, I voted by absentee ballot! So don't blame me!)

Every vote should be counted, but there really is no hope for Kerry in those votes...

~Alex

Okay. We're going to have to ease into this.

www.gregpalast.com

I agree the exit polls showed that. But, exit polls are only an estimation. Moreover, not everyone will talk to an exit poller nor do they get everyone. They take a statistical sample with a margin on error, etc. I am not saying there were not other problems in Ohio, there were by Ohio's own admission. All I am saying is I put no faith in exit polls.

Oops. That leads to the November 4 column. I was trying to link to the November 1 column. Try this link instead:http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=389&row=1

Palast is CONVINCED Kerry won Ohio and said he'll have more tonight or tomorrow morning on it.

I think it's rather telling that the only exit polls that didn't match up were the ones in Ohio and Florida.

Mmmmhmmm. :nod: It will be interesting to see what comes out of all this.

Wasn't noon (on Thursday) the cut off?

I think so.