Arguing that the initial Ohio recount was flawed due to a lack of uniform standards throughout Ohio (Florida 2000, Bush v Gore, anybody?) attorneys for the Green and Libertarian Parties filed in Federal Court this afternoon to have Ohio counted again. This time, according to the law…
From the AP article…
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 [sic] counted.
We congratulate the Greens and Libertarians again for aggressively standing up for democracy, and expect that all good Americans (even Republicans) will support their call for standards to be followed and the rule of law to be strictly applied.
In not-unrelated news…
Brad,
Your friend, Atty Jim mentioned another development worth mentioning, namely that the motion for expedited hearing and relief as filed by the Cobb, et. al. lawyers, and signed onto by Kerry lawyers, that was based in part on the Sherole Eaton affidavit, was denied.
See my re-typed version of the .pdf file below.
While the bias and conflicts of interest of Judge Moyer who decided this case are well-publicized, it seems to me that our lawyers flunked Evidence 101!
I have yet to see this reported by Cobb or others, and am anxiously awaiting news of what they plan to do next.
2004-2088. Moss v. Bush.
On Petition to Contest Election. This cause originated in this court on the filing of a petition to contest an election under R.C. 3515.08 et seq. Upon review of contestors’ motion for emergency expedited hearing and emergency expedited relief to prevent spoliation of evidence and to preserve documentary and electronic evidence, and upon review of the response of contestees Blackwell and the Presidential Electors filed pursuant to S.Ct.Prac.R. XIV(4)(B) and (C), I conclude that the motion lacks merit for the following reasons:
The contestors rely on three exhibits attached to their motion. Their first, and principal, exhibit is claimed to be an affidavit of Hocking County Board of Elections Deputy Director Sherole Eaton. This exhibit states that a representative of Tri Ad, a computer company that maintains the voting machines and vote tabulators in Hocking County, manipulated the computer and tabulation machine on December 10 just prior to the start of the recount of the presidential election in Ohio.
This exhibit, however, does not qualify as an affidavit. Although the exhibit contains the signature of both Eaton and a purported notary public, there is no specification that the statement is made under oath by Eaton or is based on her personal knowledge. In fact, much of the document is a recitation of statements purportedly uttered by someone else, and thus inadmissible hearsay. Nor is there any statement that the alleged notary witnessed Eaton’s signature… In fact, even if a proper affidavit by Eaton were before the court, it remains unclear whether the purported actions of the Tri Ad employee amounted to ballot tampering.
The contestors’ second exhibit is an excerpt from a deposition of Catherine L. Buchanan. Neither the exhibit nor the contestors’ motion, however, specifies who Buchanan is, where she works, or whether her excerpted testimony relates to the presidential election. Buchanan testifies that an employee was going to reprogram a machine. Even assuming the specified machine was an electronic voting machine that was used in the presidential election, however, there is no evidence in the deposition excerpt concerning how this would necessarily affect the recount – or more important – this election-contest case.
The contestors’ final exhibit is an unsworn, December 2, 2004 response by the Shelby County Board of Elections to a public-records request in which the board notes that “Tabulator test deck reports were discarded after election, to reduce paper-work and confusion with official results.” From the exhibit itself, there is no indication whether this relates to the presidential election. Further, there is no evidence that these particular reports would be required or helpful to a recount or whether other counyt boards of elections are preparing to discard similar records, so as to warrant the requested emergency relief.
… The contestors have proffered nothing suggesting that Ohio election officials are engaging, or will engage, in illegal conduct. The motion filed by contestors, and attachments thereto, are woefully inadequate to cause me, at this time, to order the boards of elections of all 88 counties to engage in any conduct not already required by R.C. 3599.34. Accordingly, it is ordered that the contestors’ motion for emergency expedited hearing and emergency expedited relief to prevent spoliation of evidence and to preserve documentary and electronic evidence be, and hereby is, denied.
Moyer, C.J., in Chambers
P.S. The above document was titled and dated,
Supreme Court of Ohio
Case Announcements and Administrative Actions
December 29, 2004
And, not surprisingly, in the same document it is reported that Chief Justice Moyer also denied the motion to disqualify himself.
Bush, Voinovich, Moyer all go to the same bar.
"Birds of a feather flock together."
http://www.ohiogop.org/ContactU...tesLookup.aspx
As I had previously warned, once they gain control of all three branches of government there will be no checks and balances and no legitimate democracy. Throw in electronic voting machines provided by a consortium of Republican, Christian Dominionist, and Military Industrial Complex controlled "vending" machine companies, as well as their corpoarte media, and we have LIFT-OFF!
The Ohio court ruling is one of many examples of the political branches protecting each other instead of the people! In a political threesome, only direct action of the people can break up their fun!