Washington Post Breaks Its Silence: Reports Kerry's Entrance into Ohio lawsuit

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23344-2004Nov30.html
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Kerry Team Seeks to Join Fight to Get Ohio County to Recount
Wednesday, December 1, 2004; Page A08


Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign asked an Ohio judge
yesterday to allow it to join a legal fight there over whether
election officials in one county may sit out the state's impending
recount.

A pair of third-party presidential candidates, who said that reports
of problems at the polls on Election Day are not being addressed, are
forcing the Buckeye State to recount its entire presidential vote. But
David A. Yost, a lawyer for Delaware County, just outside Columbus,
won a temporary restraining order last week blocking any recount
there. He told the Columbus Dispatch that a second count would be a
poor use of county resources. President Bush won the mostly Republican
area handily, unofficial results show.

Lawyers for the Kerry campaign asked to join Green Party presidential
candidate David Cobb, Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik and the
National Voting Rights Institute in the fight to force the county to
participate in the recount. "If there's going to be a recount in Ohio,
we don't want it to exclude Delaware County or any other county that
might decide to follow Delaware County's lead," Kerry lawyer Dan
Hoffheimer said. "It should be a full, fair and accurate recount."

Bush won the critical battleground state by approximately 136,000
votes, a victory that also won him a second term.

Cobb's lawyers filed papers yesterday asking a federal court to take
over the case, which is scheduled for state court.

-- Brian Faler