Bush's Ohio win narrower than thought

[Sleepless In NY]

Bush's Ohio win narrower than thought

The Associated Press
Updated: 2:53 p.m. ET Dec. 3, 2004

TOLEDO, Ohio - President Bush’s victory over John Kerry in Ohio was closer than the unofficial election night totals showed, but the change is not enough to trigger an automatic recount, according to county-by-county results provided to The Associated Press on Friday.

However, the Kerry campaign and two third-party candidates are seeking a recount. The Green and Libertarian parties said they have raised enough money they need to cover the costs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6646050/

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Have all the fraud allegations been figured into this? How close

is it then?

[gristy]

2. "Bush's Ohio win narrower than thought"??

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

[Disturbed]

3. Kerry should not have caved in.

Even if it can not be established that he actually won it is important that ALL votes be counted and that ALL allegations of Fraud be investigated. This phony "mandate" of shrub's must be countered with reality!!!!

[jobycom]

5. He didn't

As is being shown now. If he had refused to concede, the Republicans would have mobilized the media to tear him apart 24/7, they would have fought every step in court, and the recount would be a lot less likely to happen. I'm impressed by the way he's handled it.

[GOPBasher]

4. Yeah, and if you take into account the voting machines

that added to Bush's total and took away from Kerry's -- and Diebold made sure there's no way to verify -- Bush's win is even narrower than that. His margin of victory might be -150,000 votes or so.

[jobycom]

6. Just to rattle the conspiracy cage a bit

Kerry picked up 17K votes by counting provisional and absentee ballots. There's no logical reason that provisional ballots should break differently than regular ballots, unless there was some filter which made Democrats more likely to have to cast provisional ballots. (Obviousy there was, but the media isn't mentioning this.)

Also, in Florida 2000, we were told that absentee ballots always broke overwhelmingly Republican. So in this case, if they did break Republican, the numbers of provisional ballots that broke for the Democrats was very high. If they didn't break Republican, that makes the final Republican win even more odd. Why is that people voting absentee, who usually vote Republican, changed their minds, but the rest of the voters did not?

Remember, provisional ballots are cast when someone is told they can't vote. They are only counted if it's shown that the voter should have been allowed to vote.

What these results prove is that someone was making it harder for Democrats to cast ballots. Otherwise, the provisional ballots should have gone for Bush, as the rest of the state did.

Or else it shows that the rest of the state's numbers are bogus.

Just some points the mainstream media of old would have investigated, but the current media, ie the PR department for the Republican Party, won't bother asking.

[Moderator]

7. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1043153