Ohio vote problems see the light of day

Perhaps for the first time since the election, a major news source was essentially forced by today's unusual contest of the Ohio electoral votes to report on the many problems Ohio voters faced last November. Here's a quick rundown from the Washington Post and I suspect Diane will have more to say about all this in the near future.

Last November, Bush carried the crucial swing state of Ohio by about 118,000 ballots, although voters complained of problems in many areas, most of them Democratic-leaning precincts. In Columbus, where some people waited 10 hours to vote, up to 15,000 frustrated would-be voters left without casting ballots. Poorly trained poll workers in Cleveland gave faulty instructions to voters that resulted in thousands of provisional ballots being rejected, and they misdirected several hundred votes to third-party candidates. In Youngstown, 25 electronic machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to Bush, researchers found.

Similar problems occurred in other states, several Democrats said yesterday, and Congress must demand improvements such as electronic voting machines with paper trails providing backup data. Congress should "take it upon itself once and for all to reform this system," freshman Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said in his first Senate floor speech.

While I personally never held out any hope that the challenges to the vote tally in Ohio would result in Kerry winning the presidency, I agree that we have a third rate voting system that badly needs some federal standards. (And it is nice to see Obama sticking up for voting rights in his first floor speech.)

The more I think about it, the more I'm hoping this put Republicans on notice that this time, Democrats are in a fighting mood.