The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News December 3, 2004

Editorial
Count every vote in Ohio

It has now been a month since the eyes of the world turned to our state and a slim majority of Ohio voters decided the election for George W. Bush. While Ohio avoided becoming “this year’s Florida” as many had predicted, serious questions are now being raised about how the election was conducted and how legitimate the results really were.

While much has been made in this community of the willingness of students and residents to stand in line for up to five hours at the polls, it is still not clear exactly why they had to. Election officials had known for weeks before the election that voter registration in Oberlin was at a record high. 8,162 Oberlin residents registered to vote in the election including more than 2,000 College students. The numbers were so high that a local Republican politician went so far as to allege registration fraud.

Yet on Election Day, polling stations were completely overwhelmed and unprepared for the number of Oberlin residents who turned out to vote. Both the First Church and public library sites brought new punch card machines in the mid afternoon, though this did little to diminish waiting times. Given the high registration numbers, it is inconceivable that the Board of Elections could not have anticipated this problem. When the Review attempted to contact them this week to explain the oversight they were unavailable for comment.

Elsewhere in Ohio the outlook is similarly bleak. A group of angry Democratic voters challenged the election outcome in the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday. In addition to understaffing and inadequate equipment, mechanical error or maniupulation may have actually changed the results in some cases. An electronic voting machine in a Columbus suburb reportedly gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a town where only 638 people voted. As in 2000, there are also complaints that punch card votes for Kerry may not have been counted.

Even if these irregularities are corrected, it is unlikely to change the outcome of the Ohio vote and even less likely to make a significant dent in President Bush’s comfortable margin of victory in the popular vote.

However, the credibility of our electoral democracy relies on a reliable electoral system. Any evidence of corruption or incompetence ought to be fully investigated. It is also not unreasonable to pay particularly close attention to the actions of Ohio Attorney General Kenneth Blackwell given his close connections to Bush’s reelection campaign.

The United States is currently and always has been one of the strongest advocates for free and fair elections throughout the world. However, it is difficult to see how voters in Iraq or Ukraine can feel confidence in the U.S.’s supervision when the voters of Ohio still have so many unanswered questions.

–Managing Editor, Faith Richards
–Chief News Editor, Josh Keating
–Commentary Editor, Casey Ashenhurst and Tiffany N. Perry
 
 

   

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