GOP withdraws thousands of challenges in Ohio

[Rob E Dangerously]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...tion_challenges

 

Glitch Forces GOP to Withdraw Challenges

 

1 hour, 13 minutes ago 

 

By CARRIE SPENCER, Associated Press Writer

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - State Republicans withdrew thousands of more than 35,000 challenges to new voter registrations because of errors in their filings apparently caused by a computer glitch.

 

Republicans filed the challenges Friday in 65 of Ohio's 88 counties, saying mail sent to the newly registered voters was returned as undeliverable.

 

Over the weekend, the party withdrew about 4,700 challenges in Hamilton County because the names and addresses on the GOP list did not match voter rolls, and Franklin County officials in Columbus accepted 2,371 challenges, rejecting half of about 4,200 filed.

 

Challenged voters will be notified by mail that they are entitled to attend a hearing with proof of their address.

 

Even if they fail to show up, the elections board is not likely to throw out the registrations, said Matthew Damschroder, Franklin County's elections chief and a Republican. Doing so could violate the federal right to vote even if the voter has failed to notify elections officials of an address change, he said.

 

It is too late to file a new challenge under the statute the party used, John Williams, election director in Hamilton County, said Monday. There appeared to be an error in the database program used to print the challenges, so that addresses were not matched with the correct names, he said.

 

But the largest single batch of challenges, some 17,000 in Cuyahoga County, is still being processed because there were no errors, said Jane Platten, elections board spokeswoman.

 

Polls show that the race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry in the key swing state is too close to call.

 

We'll see what happens with those challenges in Cuyahoga county. But what happened with the challenges in Cincinnati (Hamilton county) and Columbus (Franklin county) increases the chances that the media will be sent to Cleveland. Which is probably something they'd prefer not to do.

 

And we'll see if that does much for the blood pressure for the people on both sides.