The Washington Post reports that on Tuesday the Kerry presidential campaign asked an Ohio judge to allow it to join the legal fight over whether one county can decline to participate in the state’s impending recount:
A pair of third-party presidential candidates, who said that reports of problems at the polls on Election Day are not being addressed, are forcing the Buckeye State to recount its entire presidential vote. But David A. Yost, a lawyer for Delaware County, just outside Columbus, won a temporary restraining order last week blocking any recount there. He told the Columbus Dispatch that a second count would be a poor use of county resources. President Bush won the mostly Republican area handily, unofficial results show.
Lawyers for the Kerry campaign asked to join Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb, Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik and the National Voting Rights Institute in the fight to force the county to participate in the recount. "If there's going to be a recount in Ohio, we don't want it to exclude Delaware County or any other county that might decide to follow Delaware County's lead," Kerry lawyer Dan Hoffheimer said. "It should be a full, fair and accurate recount."
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that President Bush won traditionally Republican Southwest Ohio by more votes than was apparent November 2:
Final tallies show that Bush defeated Democrat Sen. John Kerry, 463,251 to 307,661, in Butler, Clermont, Hamilton and Warren counties. On Election Night, unofficial results had Bush defeating Kerry, 450,591 to 295,858.
The final 155,590-vote margin contributed to Bush's decisive win in Ohio. Unofficial results showed Bush defeated Kerry by 136,483 votes in Ohio.
According to MSNBC’s David Shuster this is the first time the Kerry campaign has joined the legal wrangling in Ohio in any formal fashion. Democrats not affiliated with the Kerry campaign speculate that this move is intended to appease party activists who might be angry that Kerry wasn’t more active in this recount to begin with.
None of this is going to change the result.
UPDATE: The Associated Press reports that Ohio counties finished certifying votes in the presidential race Wednesday:
Ohio's 88 counties reported validating 121,598 provisional ballots from 156,977 checked, according to an Associated Press tabulation. The deadline for counties to certify election results was Wednesday.
[. . .]
President Bush's margin of victory against John Kerry on Nov. 2 was 136,483 votes. Kerry conceded after figuring he would not get enough of the provisional ballot vote to overtake Bush's total.
Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell's office, said there will be no available breakdown of how many provisionals went to Bush or Kerry. He said the final tally will be inclusive of all votes.
Even if all of the 121,598 provisional ballots validated went to Kerry, it wouldn't change the result.
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