On Wednesday, Ohio's 88 counties finally finished counting the votes, including 156,977 provisional ballots. That's 1,640 more than the 155,337 total reported on Election Day. (Did Republicans need to manufacture 1,640 new votes to keep Bush in the lead? We'll be watching.) Officials validated 121,598 of those ballots, or 77%. For some mysterious reason, Ken Blackwell won't break out the provisional ballot totals separately - what is he hiding? But the diligent folks at Ohio Voter Suppression News did the math and found a net gain of 17,977 (including the Election Night computer error in Franklin County of 3,893 for Kerry). By my tally, Bush's lead is now down to 118,506.

Blackwell will spend the weekend alone with all the data, secretly deciding what to report on Monday. We need some Democratic lawyers to visit Blackwell's office immediately to make this phase completely transparent! 

Kerry lawyers are watching like hawks, according to MSNBC - which seems to be the only media outlet (besides Democrats.com and Air America Radio) paying attention to Ohio.

A Kerry spokesperson tells First Read that Kerry's move to join the recount effort in Ohio "was the next step in ensuring that no county is excluded from the recount in Ohio, to ensure an accurate statewide count happens swiftly -- it was important to add the campaign's heft to that effort."

The "swiftly" part is the crux of the issue. According to Knight Ridder,

Any recount wouldn't start until Dec. 11.  That would leave only about 24 hours to find enough invalid votes to reverse Bush's victory in Ohio before the state's presidential electors vote for him on Dec. 13, which would seal his re-election.

That may be true in George Bush's imaginary world - but not in Reality-Based America!

The important legal precedent is the fascinating story of the 1960 Presidential race in Hawaii. On Nov. 17 2000, Richard Nixon was certified as the winner by 141 votes. But Democrats charged voting irregularities and demanded a recount. On Dec. 2, Circuit Court Judge Ronald B. Jamieson examined one precinct and found a discrepancy of 45 votes in Kennedy's favor. After finding more problems, Jamieson eventually ordered a statewide recount. While the recount was proceeding, Hawaii's Electors met on Dec. 16. The "official" Electors for Nixon cast 3 votes for Nixon, but 3 other Electors for Kennedy voted for JFK. On Dec. 27, Jamieson declared Kennedy the winner by a 115 vote margin. Hawaii's Democrats brought these results to Congress, and on Jan. 6, 1961, the presiding Vice President - Richard Nixon - appropriately ruled in favor of JFK's Electors!

The important popular precedent is unfolding right before our eyes - in Ukraine.

Ohio will have a statewide recount, thanks to the Glibs. If Kerry ends up with more votes, Kerry's Electors will be the only legitimate Electors.

And even if Kerry does not end up with more votes, attorney Cliff Arnebeck will force federal judges to examine powerful evidence of fraud - including the systematic disenfranchisement of black voters by deliberately allocating too few machines and creating impossibly long lines. If a judge rules fraud did occur, we will make sure Washington looks exactly like Kiev, with millions of us surrounding the Capitol in January demanding Kerry be sworn in.

Which is exactly what we tried to do in 2000, but there were too few of us - a handful of members of the Congressional Black Caucus (memorably depicted at the start of Fahrenheit 9-11), along with Democrats.com, VoterMarch.org, Citizens for Legitimate Government, and a handful of other small groups. But this time, we will not be alone!

Speaking of 2000, the woman whose idiotic butterfly ballot cost Al Gore 20,000 votes and the White House - Teresa LePore - was back in the news yesterday.

After Palm Beach voters finally threw her out of office by defeating her on Election Day, she was hoping to enjoy a lavish going-away party at taxpayer expense in Orlando. But Bev Harris & Co. had other ideas. After filing a lawsuit in Palm Beach, they paid a "surprise visit" to the Harris fete in Orlando, sneaking in through the hotel kitchen.

Harris went onto the podium and introduced herself to the crowd. "I know I'm interrupting. This will only take a minute." She turned to LePore, "Since we can't get your attention any other way, I'm serving you with a courtesy copy of the lawsuit we served on your office this morning."

LePore glared, turned her back on Harris, and refused to take the lawsuit, so Harris set it on the table in front of LePore.

Stephenson stood up in front of the crowd of perhaps 200 Florida elections officials.

"This was a courtesy call on Ms. LePore for failing to produce public records," he said. "For any of you who have not complied, we have more of these coming."

Black Box Voting has identified 13 Florida counties who have earned litigation due to failure to comply with public records requests.

The elections officials erupted into deafening shouts, boos, gavel-pounding, and then Wynne stepped up smack dab in front of the crowd, took a sturdy stance and panned the crowd with her video camera.

"This is what democracy looks like," she said, as the officials scowled and shouted for the sergeant at arms.

Unfortunately, the sergeant at arms was nowhere to be found. (Perhaps imbibing in the Sequoia Voting Systems lounge, just down the hall? We may never know.)

What a hoot! Just for entertainment value, Bev's tapes will be priceless. I assume that's why she won't share them with Keith Olbermann, who went after Bev in his blog:

The usefulness of that videotape to the immediate issue at hand - were there widespread failures of the electronic voting systems in this country on November 2nd, and if so, were those failures enabledby any malfeasance - has an expiration date. If they show irregularities, if they show public servants at their worst, even if they’re guerrilla-style political confrontations, they have a public value - an urgent one.

Have you seen them?

What Ms. Harris has left herself open to is a charge that as much as any interest she has in the justifiable public concern over our most precious right - the right to a reliable, honest election - she may also have an interest in making her own documentary, on her own schedule, for her own purposes.

C'mon Bev, you can at least let Olbermann broadcast a teaser and give us all some holiday cheer!

As for Bev's latest prey, Madame Butterfly will not fade quietly into the woodwork when she leaves her job as Supervisor of Elections. Instead, she will move from the henhouse to the fox's house - as an election-fraud investigator at the Palm Beach County State Attorney's office! This may be the most convincing proof yet that the 2004 election in Palm Beach was actually stolen, as the Berkeley study suggested.

LePore's pals, Florida's other 66 election supervisors hatched a scheme to steal future elections by abolishing neighborhood voting precincts and substituting an 11-day voting period at county-run voting centers.

Taking a cue from this year’s two-week early voting period, supervisors of elections meeting this week in Orlando are proposing to do away with a single Election Day in favor of an 11-day election period.

Under that plan, which must be approved by the state legislature, voters could cast ballots over a span of several days or weeks.

An estimated 2.3 million people cast ballots during the 15-day early voting period this year.

However, because of the overwhelming response, voters had to wait sometimes for hours in long lines to cast their ballots.
Instead of being assigned to a precinct, voters would be allowed to cast their ballots at “voting centers” throughout the county.

To prevent crowds, those voting centers would be staffed with more personnel and voting machines than were assigned during the early voting period.

State Sen. Ron Klein said he doesn’t feel Election Day should be done away with, but early voting should be refined and improved.

The major consequence of this change would be to make it harder for poor people with limited mobility to vote, since voting centers will be further from home. Of course, keeping poor people from voting would suit Republicans to a T. If Florida truly wants to make voting more convenient, why don't they simply adopt the Oregon system of 100% voting by mail?