The Green Party’s David Cobb and Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik jointly announced their intentions to file a formal demand for a statewide recount in Ohio today. The two defeated third-party candidates also called upon Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who chaired President Bush’s campaign in the Buckeye State, to recuse himself from the recount process. Cobb and Badnarik hope to raise $110,000 to pay for the recall. Earlier today, Ralph Nader, who was forced to wage a write-in campaign in Ohio after his name was stricken from the ballot, also called for a statewide recount in the presidential race. The longtime consumer activist, who is also demanding a recount in New Hampshire, also blasted the Ohio Secretary of State, saying he should resign in disgrace. “When people are standing in line for four or five hours and they are told they’ve got to stand in line for another five hours and they leave because they’ve got to go to work or they got to pick up their child at day care, that’s a constitutional crime,” Nader asserted. Unofficial results in Ohio show Bush leading Democrat John F. Kerry by more than 136,000 votes with more than 155,000 provisional ballots and an undetermined number of absentee ballots yet to be counted.
(from Darcy Richardson)
This is completely mental.
These are the same two candidates who pulled that stunt at the debates, thinking it would get them media attention.
Total dolts.
I retract the above comment.
Seems there were some irregularities for David Cobb, who was a write-in candidate. Initially, he was getting about 4,000 write-in votes, but then *somehow* it dropped to 24.
Same thing happened in West Virginia, I believe.
I never trust anything the state tells us.
I support this effort and Nader’s call for the New Hampshire recount
the following is an online petition to get congress to investigate electronic voting machine problems and fraud
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?uselect
33,000 signatures and growing tell anybody you know with a brain!!
“…’that’s a constitutional crime,’ Nader asserted.” I always get a kick out of people such as Ralph Nader suddenly becoming born-again supporters of the Constitution. Most of the time he and they ignore it … much as the Republocrats do.
Just playing devil’s advocate-wouldn’t $110,000 be better spent on changing Ohio’s ballot access laws?
Talk about throwing good money after bad. Whoever heard of a candidate (Cobb) demanding a recount of an election when he wasn’t even on the ballot in that state? Not to mention the fact that a recount won’t affect the fact that the lines at polling places were too long, or that some counties still used punched-card ballots. (A recount isn’t going to find 2.8 million “pregnant chads” for Badnarik.)
If these candidates can raise $110,000, they would benefit themselves a lot more by using it for a future campaign than by increasing their minuscule vote totals in 2004.
You’re missing the point. They’re organizing the recount not for themselves, but because the Kerry campaign isn’t doing it.
It says something when it takes third party candidates to organize a recount in a pivotal state that had suspicious reports. This is about democracy, not their campaigns.
I’m glad somebody is trying to get the machines audited and to expose the problems inherent in them. See the ACM statement approved on Aug 25th, 2004 if you think computers are always right. (ACM is the venerable American Computing Machinery organization)
Too bad Kerry doesn’t have the gumption.
BTW, Badnarik was arrested for trying to serve the CPD with papers regarding the lawsuit he was initiating in Arizona. A lawsuit protesting use of tax money for partisan political events (the third debate). Very well grounded that lawsuit. Part of it is continuing.
The CPD was shown to be partisan by the outcome in federal court of the lawsuit carried forward from the 2000 election by Ralph Nader. (remember when he was thrown out of the sudience though he had a ticket??) The FEC is under instruction to reform the CPD to make it non-partisan !!!!!
Hooray for Nader! Hooray for Badnarik!
Hooray for Bev Harris who is doing a lot of the number crunching!
Kerry and the DNC should be ashamed!!
Bush and Diebold should be ashamed!!
I as well don’t trust what the states tell us. Here in Duval County, Florida — the site of the original theft of the presidency four years ago, I am throwing my vote in for an independent candidate, Darcy Richardson, for Duval County Supervisor of Elections, to ensure integrity exists in the election process.
The money was collected for the purpose of promoting an honest vote count. Unfortunately, the donors probably would not have donated over $100k in only a few days to promote the Libertarian or Green Parties or to change Ohio’s vicious ballot access laws.
The so-called “stunt” which led to their arrest was in fact an effort by Michael Badnarik and David Cobb to exercise their God-given Constitutionally guaranteed rights. The fact that the establishment media blacked them out is irrelevant except to indicate the establishment media’s fear that the Libertarian message would appeal to many Americans if they could hear it.
The fact that a recount is unlikely to result in a Badnarik or Cobb victory in Ohio indicates that they are promoting honest, democratic elections, not their personal or party ends. To the extent that the local media in Ohio are reporting this, it is excellent publicity for the Libertarian and Green Parties. I think the Constitution Party missed a very good opportunity to join in this effort.