http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/114668696130800.xml&storylist=cleveland5/3/2006, 3:57 p.m. ET
The Associated Press
(AP) — ...
_Stark County in northeast Ohio delayed results until Wednesday because of 30 missing memory cards that held votes. Election workers found several cards in voting machines and the rest were found filed out of numerical sequence in the elections board offices, executive director Jeff Matthews said.
_A man in Mahoning County, confused about how to use the electronic keyboard, used a pen to write in a congressional candidate on the machine's screen; a poll worker used her saliva to clean it.
_About 50 people left without voting at Franklin County precincts that opened as much as an hour late because poll workers were unsure what to do when they made mistakes turning on the machines.
_A few voters left a polling place in Summit County because workers couldn't figure out how to set up new optical scan units...
("I kind of think something fishy is going on..."-poll worker)-
Lack of three-pronged adaptors closes polling site for hours
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=51671Reported by Jennifer Murphy
Created: 5/2/2006 10:13:20 PM
Updated:5/2/2006 11:35:16 PM
CLEVELAND -- Elections officials knew there would be problems making the transition from paper ballots to electronic voting and they were right.
In fact, the CEO of the board of elections gave Tuesday's performance a failing grade.
In some cases, the problems with the machines were complicated -- Access cards that didn't work, paper trails that jammed.
But at the Garden Valley Neighborhood Center on Cleveland's east side, it was a "small set back" that caused big problems - the voting machines have three-pronged outlets, but the center didn't have electrical adaptors.
"I kind of think something fishy is going on because I don't understand why it took so long for someone to get here to set up the site," poll worker Paulzalina Wagner said...
election director-"only" 20% of poll workers didn't show up
Election snafu
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=51716Created: 5/3/2006 5:54:27 PM
Updated:5/3/2006 7:34:26 PM
CLEVELAND -- ...By the election director's assessment, first touch screen voting went "fairly well," with "only" 20 per cent of poll workers not showing up, leaving or not knowing how to do their jobs...
The biggest glitch was the disappearance of 70 memory cards that record votes. There is a paper backup so the votes did not disappear.
And losing memory cards is better than losing paper ballots.
"In the punch card world, if there was a punch card ballots missing we would never be able to recover those votes," officials said...
Results delayed on problem-filled election day
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=51639CLEVELAND -- ...There were so many problems that there was talk of extending voting hours and concerns over counting ballots. Some politicians asked that they remain open until 9 p.m. The Garden Valley location did just that because of numerous problems. They remained open until 9:30 p.m...
Hope turned to despair at 71st and Kinsman when broken electronic voting machines forced voters to wait until 1:30 p.m. Tuesday to cast their vote.
"I was incensed when I came in this morning and electronic voting machines were down," one voter said.
The faulty machines frustrated the volunteer poll workers too who said they didn't know what to do when the machines wouldn't work...
Election results-
http://www.wkyc.com/news/elections/results/20060502/Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Blackwell to honor prayer day
http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/openers/ Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell, who successfully wooed his party’s conservative base with lots of talk about his faith, shows no signs of backing off his proselytizing...
In God they (bank and) trust
...So what do guns, God and gays have to do with a candidate's ability to manage Ohio's $11 billion portfolio?
Plenty, says Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, the group largely responsible for the passage of state Issue 1 in 2004, which handed President Bush a second term...
Voter turnout
About 1.8 million people, or 23 percent of the state’s 7.6 million registered voters, cast ballots on Tuesday. The figure is in line with the secretary of state’s prediction last week that about 25 percent of voters would go to the polls...
Newly nominated candidates for governor seek to reach majority
http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/114668696130800.xml&storylist=cleveland5/3/2006, 7:50 p.m. ET
By JULIE CARR SMYTH
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio will be at the center of the national political stage again this fall, as both Democrats and Republicans seek to break old molds and win control of the governor's mansion.
U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee, is an ordained minister from Appalachia who is endorsed by the gun lobby. Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who won the GOP nomination Tuesday, is the first black Republican to run for the office and has campaigned with a Bible in his hand and a government-limiting constitutional amendment in his back pocket.
Moderate Republicans leery of Blackwell's stringent stances and liberal Democrats who find some of Strickland's positions too conservative are watching to see which candidate might be for them.
And they'll have plenty of exposure to the candidates before making their choice. Spending estimates already have reached $50 million...
Death penalty foes hope Ohio execution problems draw attention
5/3/2006, 7:53 p.m. ET
By ERICA RYAN
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Defense attorneys and death penalty opponents said Wednesday the unprecedented difficulties injecting a man executed in Ohio illustrate the problems with a method of capital punishment they call unconstitutional.
Problems finding a suitable vein to deliver drugs during Joseph Lewis Clark's execution Tuesday demonstrated the complications that can arise, said David Bodiker, Ohio's public defender. His office has sued the state challenging the effectiveness of its method of lethal injection.
"I think that this underlines or emphasizes the fact that we're not capable of actually imposing a formula for taking the life of the people on death row and doing it a manner that we have committed to which is painless and efficient," he said.
Clark's execution counters the belief that lethal injection is easy and straightforward, said Douglas Berman, an Ohio State University law professor who studies the death penalty...