Toledo court sets trial date (8/06) in recount lawsuit

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/news-19/1125616440315630.xml&storylist=cleveland

Toledo court sets trial date in recount lawsuit
9/1/2005, 7:09 p.m. ET
The Associated Press

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A voting advocate's lawsuit seeking clarification of Ohio's rules for conducting election recounts will go to trial next August in federal court, the judge's office said Thursday.

The National Voting Rights Institute, on behalf of two minor-party candidates in Ohio's 2004 presidential election, filed the lawsuit against Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's chief elections officer, in U.S. District Court in December.

It alleges irregularities in the recount of the Nov. 2 election that gave President Bush Ohio and the presidency. Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik and Green Party candidate David Cobb paid for the recount, despite garnering less than 0.3 percent of the vote. The recount showed Bush won by 118,000 votes.

Institute lawyer John Bonifaz, who is representing Badnarik and Cobb, said some counties didn't tally the entire vote by hand when the hand count of 3 percent of the vote didn't match the machine vote, as required by law. Other counties manipulated ballots to match the machine vote or failed to secure the ballots, which led to tampering, Bonifaz said...