OHIO Voters to ensure fate of ballots

Voters are advised to carefully check over ballots.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- In most of Ohio's 12,151 precincts this presidential election it will be up to voters to try to ensure their choices will count.
State law says nothing about how to make sure punch-card ballots -- which were at the center of the disputed 2000 election in Florida -- can be read by machines that process the votes.
Guidelines from the secretary of state's office leave the cards' condition largely up to voters, who are advised to carefully read their ballots before turning them in.
Voters in 68 of Ohio's 88 counties will use punch-card ballots Nov. 2, despite efforts to get electronic voting machines statewide. Those counties, where 72 percent of Ohio's registered voters live, include three of the four most populous.
The rest of the state will use existing electronic machines or scanners that read pencil marks next to candidates' names.
Lawsuits
Disputes have erupted this year over ballots, electronic voting and voter registration in several states. Democrats and Republicans plan to send observers to polls in Ohio and other key states to watch for any problems.
The American Civil Liberties Union has sued Ohio, saying the use of punch cards discriminates against minorities and low-income voters because a majority of them live in counties using those ballots.
Lawsuits also were filed over provisional ballots, those cast when a voter moves without notifying the elections board or when poll workers cannot find them on the rolls. Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell ordered boards not to allow voters to cast provisional ballots at the wrong polling place but direct them to the correct precinct.
U.S. District Judge James Carr in Toledo ruled that voters should be allowed to obtain provisional ballots in any polling place in their home county. Blackwell appealed.
The Ohio Democratic Party and a coalition of labor and voter rights group say the directive discriminates against the poor and minorities.
State law, passed in 2001, does dictate what constitutes a punch-card vote: a chad that hangs by no more than two corners.