It's near the campaign's end - send in the lawyers

[babylonsister]

It's near the campaign's end - send in the lawyers

By DEBORAH HASTINGS
AP National Writer


Four years after Ohio's near meltdown on Election Day, state officials had a novel idea: Put all the political lawyers in one room and ask them to work things out in advance this time.

Good luck with that.

"Lawsuits are unavoidable," said Doug Chapin, director of electionline.org, a nonpartisan advocacy group. "If it's close and either side believes that some evil is about to happen, they're going to do something about it."

That usually means a trip to the courthouse, often at the last minute. And in this extremely close race for the White House, there are at least 7,000 volunteer lawyers ready to deploy to key states, armed with injunctions covering issues great and small. And that's just the Democrats. The Republicans won't say how many they have on hand.

In one of those battleground states, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Attorney General Nancy Rogers ushered more than 75 legal experts into a meeting at the statehouse last month and tried to convince them it would only harm voters if they filed the same flurry of last-minute lawsuits that kept the state in legal limbo until the end in 2004.

Sore points have already surfaced but have yet to be litigated this time around: increasingly popular early voting and whether it's susceptible to fraud, and an upcoming five-day period in Ohio when folks can register and vote on the same day (Republicans say that's also vulnerable to fraud).

Ever since Democrats and Republicans were caught flat-footed in Florida eight years ago, both parties have added legions of lawyers to their political arsenals - litigators who've filed scores of lawsuits challenging every voting nuance from requiring photo identification to Election Day weather conditions.

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