Ohio judge rejects vote tally challenge

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday dismissed a challenge to the state's presidential election results.

A lawyer for the voters bringing the case said he would refile the challenge, possibly today.

Chief Justice Thomas Moyer ruled that the request improperly challenged two separate election results. Ohio law allows only one race to be challenged in a single complaint, he said.

The challenge was backed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney for the Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy, who accused President Bush's campaign of "high-tech vote stealing."

Alleging fraud, the voters cited reports of voting-machine errors, double-counting of ballots, and a shortage of voting machines in predominantly minority precincts as reasons to throw out the results.

Ohio and its 20 electoral votes determined the outcome of the election, tipping the race to Bush. The state declared him the winner by 119,000 votes, but counties are in the middle of a recount -- requested by two minor party candidates and supported by the campaign of Senator John F. Kerry.

The complaint questioned how the actual results could show Bush winning when exit-poll interview findings on election night indicated that Kerry would win 52 percent of Ohio's presidential vote.

Without listing specific evidence, the complaint says 130,656 votes for Kerry and John Edwards in 36 counties were somehow switched to count for the Bush-Cheney ticket.

The allegations are based on an analysis comparing the presidential race with Moyer's Supreme Court race against a Cleveland municipal judge.

But nothing in state law or any previous court decision allows challenges to be combined, Moyer said.

"Were this court to sanction consolidation here, it would establish a precedent whereby 25 voters could challenge, in a single case, the election results of every statewide race and issue on the ballot in any given election," Moyer wrote.

Arnebeck said that while he thinks he is permitted to contest two elections with a common set of facts, "we're going to go with the flow."

Filing the challenge again today would depend on gathering the voters' signatures again, he said.