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December 15, 2004
Doubts Persist About Election Results
Integrity
of vote
questioned
(AP) — Concerns persist about
the integrity of the nation's voting
system - particularly in Ohio, where
details continue to emerge of tech
nology failures, voter confusion
and overcrowded polling stations
in minority and ptx>r neighbor
hoods.
Reported problems include in
sufficient or incomplete provisional
ballots and, in some places, brazen
partisan shenanigans.
Democratic congressman John
Conyers Jr. o f Michigan, the Rev.
Jesse Jackson and presidential can
didates of the Green and Libertar
ian parties - are questioning the
accuracy of certified results and
dem anding investigations.
O f greatest concern is the extent
of disenfranchisement in the criti-
In Columbus, Ohio, Melissa Hedden draws attention to irregularities and possible fraud in
the way elections officials counted the votes that gave President Bush a slim victory in the
state. (AP photo)
Carnage Builds with Suicide Bombings
(A P) — A suicide car bom ber
killed seven people at a G reen
Zone checkpoint i n Baghdad early
T uesday, the second attack in
tw o days near the district that
houses Iraq’s interim governm ent
and the U.S. Em bassy, officials
said. The earlier blast killed 13
and injured 15 people.
No U.S. troops were killed in
either blast, but the American mili
tary said two Marines from the I st
Marine Expeditionary Force based
in western Iraq died in combat
Monday, bringing the number of
Marines killed to 10 in three days.
A US soldier inspects
the site where a suicide
car bomber killed seven
people Tuesday at a
Green Zone checkpoint
in Baghdad's district
that houses Iraq's
interim government and
foreign embassies. (AP
photo)
E lsew here in B aghdad, the
chairm an o f the Joint C hiefs o f
S taff announced the U.S. m ilitary
will have a record-high 150,000
troops in Iraq through the Jan. .30
elections and "a little bit after.”
The previous high for the U.S.
force in Iraq was 148,000on May 1,
2(X)3, when President Bush declared
that major combat operations were
over and most soldiers thought
the war had been won.
D espite repeated forecasts in
the past that successes on the
battlefield and the arrests of most
o f Saddam H ussein’s top aides
w ould w eaken the insurgency,
the num ber o f attacks on U.S.
tr o o p s
and
th e
in te r im
g o v e rn m e n t’s secu rity forces
has not decreased.
A bout 550 U.S. soldiers died
in the first year after the in v a
sion was launched; alm ost 750
tro o p s have died in the nine
m onths that follow ed.
cal swing state of Ohio, whose 20
electoral votes guaranteed Bush's
victory.
The n atio n ’s voting system ,
despite im provem ents since the
2000 Florida fiasco, remains a lo
cally ad m in istered p atchw ork
whose lack of national uniformity
distinguishes the United States from
many other democracies.
Although most complaints have
come from Democrats and the third-
party candidates. Republicans and
bipartisan groups acknow ledge
problems. The Government A c
countability Office is investigating
election problems. Rep. Bob Ney,
R-Ohio and chairman of the House
A dm inistration Com mittee, will
oversee an inquiry next year.
The U.S. Election Assistance
Commission, created in 2002, is also
scrutinizing the outcome. It plans
to p u b lis h in Ja n u a ry the
governm ent’s first report on the
voting, which will serve as the ba
sis for congressional recommenda
tions and reforms.
Rev. Jackson and other activists
want wholesale changes in the U.S.
voting process, ideally before the
2(X)6 midterm elections. Jackson
says the most distressing problem
appears to be the lack of nation
wide standards. No federal agency
enforces regulations when states
or counties fail to comply with in
ternal procedures.
Without national standards, he
said, some poor counties have infe
rior equipm ent and insufficient
numbers o f voting machines to
support dense populations.
Conyers, the top Democrat on
the House Judiciary Com mittee,
began examining O hio’s problems
in a hearing this past week attended
by eight Democratic lawmakers.
Among his concerns was that
voters in urban, minority and Demo
cratic precincts waited in lines up to
eight hours. Conyers also charged
that a “campaign o f deception” di
rected some Democrats to wrong
polling places, where they were
forced to cast provisional ballots.
Foster Parents Charged
sault charge.
Additional charges could come
after detectives speak with the little
girl, who remains in serious condi
(A P )— Additional charges may tion at a Portland hospital, said
be filed against the foster parents C la c k a m a s C o u n ty S h e r if f ’s
o f a 5-year-old girl who was hospi Deputy Joel Manley.
talized after authorities responded
Investigators have interview ed
to a call that the child had suffered the o th er seven ch ild ren w ho
a seizure after a head injury and lived with W illiam and T helm a
found her weighing just 28 pounds. Beaver near Sandy, M anley said.
Wi lliam and Thelma Beaver, the T hree o f the other children were
foster parents o f Jordan Knapp, foster children, three were the
were arrested last week on charges B eaver’s biological children and
of criminal mistreatment. Thelma one was a foreign exchange stu
Beaver, 39, faces an additional as dent from Korea.
M a ln o u rish ed
girl hospitalized
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