Ruling early this morning, a divided federal court of appeals handed Republicans a potentially significant election day legal victory in this fiercely contested state, clearing the way for the party to challenge thousands of newly registered voters.

The decision by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals could affect at least 23,000 newly registered Ohio residents whose qualifications Republicans have sought to challenge.

Foreign monitors 'barred' from US polls
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=22&art_id=qw1099435860260U213

Some observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a Europe-wide security and rights forum, were barred from entering some polling stations in the United States on Tuesday, one of them said.

"We were not allowed to enter polling stations," said Soeren Soendergaard, a Danish parliamentary deputy. "Although we were officially invited to follow the (US presidential) election, the message was not passed on to the polling stations," he told the Danish news agency Ritzau. He said he had been personally refused admission at three out of four polling stations in Columbus, Ohio.

Another Danish OSCE observer, conservative Carina Christensen, reported less serious irregularities in Jacksonville, Florida, but said police had been called when she tried to visit a Republican office.

She and three other delegation members had been well received by local representatives of the Democrat Party who had ensured their access to polling stations.

But Republicans were less welcoming. "We were denied entry to a local Republican office in Orlando," she told Ritzau: "They called the police, saying they had received guidelines from Washington to do so."

Six news groups sue Ohio elections chief
http://newsobserver.com/24hour/nation/story/1787536p-9649852c.html

Six national news organizations filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking additional access at the polls on Election Day.

ABC, CNN, CBS, Fox News, NBC and The Associated Press sued Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell over a policy that would prevent exit polling within 100 feet of a voting place.

Voting list snafu causes problems in Marion County
http://www.indystar.com/articles/8/191290-5018-092.html

Thousands of Marion County residents were left off the voter registration list for today's election because of an error in deleting deceased people from the rolls and because of a change in how outdated registration forms were treated, officials said.

The county removed 3,376 names from the voter rolls by mistake after receiving a list of possibly deceased former voters from the secretary of state's office.

The list came with a warning that the names should be checked before anyone was removed, but that was not done, said Kyle Walker, a member of the Voter Registration Board. He said a deputy clerk in the office ordered the names deleted before it was discovered that not all of those people were deceased.

Residents removed from the list because they were supposedly deceased were allowed to vote when the mistake was discovered.

A "snafu" takes time to sort out.

Bogus calls target area Democrats
http://www.starbanner.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041102/NEWS/41102007/1001/
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At least a few Marion and Lake county residents received telephone calls Monday directing them to the wrong polling places today.

The calls targeting Democrats appear to be a local version of the false claims delivered by telephone showing up around the nation during a hotly contested presidential race.

Delphine Herbert, a Democratic poll watcher and Marco Polo resident, still had the misleading telephone call she received on her answering service.

The message urged her not to be taken in by "dirty tricks" designed to keep her from voting and send her to the wrong polling place. Ironically, the message did just that: It directed her to the wrong place to vote.

GOP doing all it can to keep minorities from voting
http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse02.html

Republicans have organized no effort to register minorities, but launched an unprecedented campaign to exclude the minority vote. They are organizing outside partisans to come to minority precincts and challenge the registration and vote of people they do not even know, notably in Ohio and Florida. If they challenge a big enough number, they figure, they will gum up the voting in minority precincts and discourage those who don't have the time to wait in long lines.

The Republican National Committee has even rolled out its own disinformation program, issuing public complaints about alleged efforts to intimidate Republican voters, in the hope the press would ignore the stark reality: Democrats are trying to help blacks, Hispanics, workers, the young and the poor register and vote and Republicans are trying to stop them.

In Philadelphia and in Michigan, Republican operatives admitted that it was their job to suppress the minority vote. In Ohio, the partisan state election head tried to exclude newly registered voters, but was slapped down by the courts. In Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush's partisan appointee tried to impose a racially biased and inaccurate felons list of ineligible voters but was slapped down once the list was made public.

In many states, Republican legislatures are ignoring federal reforms, seeking to limit provisional voting. We've already seen in Philadelphia an effort to move minority polling places at the last minute, in the hope that confused voters would give up. In South Carolina, a fake flier claiming to be from the NAACP circulated in black neighborhoods falsely threatening voters with arrest if they show up at the polls and have unpaid parking tickets or have failed to pay child support.

Is there inner-city election suppression in Franklin County, Ohio?
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/977

This morning, voters in the 55th and 5th Wards of Columbus’ near east side, majority African American and overwhelmingly Democratic areas, were waiting between two to three hours to cast their votes. At seven of the eight polling places, Free Press observers counted only three voting machines per location. According to the presiding judge at the polling site, at the Columbus Model Neighborhood facility at 1393 E. Broad St., there had been five machines during the 2004 primary. At Douglas Elementary School, there had been four machines during the light turnout of the spring primary.

Many voters are complaining that they believe the Franklin County Board of Elections, headed by Matt Damschroder, former Franklin County Republican Party Chair, deliberately placed too few machines in the center city.

E-Voting Problems Crop Up
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118431,00.asp

Reports of problems with electronic voting technology cropped up across the country Tuesday, including in the closely contested states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, as millions of U.S. citizens flooded polling places for the country's presidential election.

Malfunctioning machines, ill-trained poll workers, and an inadequate supply of voting terminals were among the problems reported to state election officials and to a host of groups monitoring the election.

The Verified Voting Foundation logged more than 500 reports of problems with electronic voting machines as of 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and more reports were expected from the western United States, according to Will Doherty, executive director of the foundation.

It was standing room only at local polls
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=77564&ran=225616

Problems also were reported with the newer electronic voting machines used in Norfolk and Suffolk. Pamela Smith , a physician in Norfolk, arrived at the Lafayette branch library just before 8 a.m. to find long lines. She said that when she got inside and tried to vote, she was unable to activate the electronic voting machine.

It took 10 different voting cards before one turned on the machine, she said. She spent 80 minutes at the polling place and left less than certain of the result.

In Suffolk, Bob Rogers also had difficulty with an electronic machine. He said he tried to vote for Sen. John F. Kerry, but the machine kept highlighting President Bush instead. The precinct captain finally had the machine reset, he said.