It has been noted in at least
one other diary that a federal judge on Tuesday denied the Glib's request for a recount of Ohio ballots even before the official count was finished.
Perhaps more importantly, a Delaware County judge also on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order sought by the county's Board of Elections to block Green and Libertarian presidential candidates from forcing a recount.
From today's Dispatch:
County Prosecutor David Yost, the board's legal adviser, said he was pleased that Common Pleas Judge W. Duncan Whitney granted the temporary order. The board is seeking a permanent injunction to quash the recount request . . .
In the Delaware County case, the elections board wants to block a recount both before and after certification.
"To ask taxpayers to fund someone's political hobbyhorse when there's no possible chance of a different outcome seems to be an utter waste," Yost said. "There's better uses for that money in Delaware County and, I suspect, in other places around the state."
Yost couldn't immediately estimate the cost of a recount in the county, but said it would be "substantial."
This is the latest ingredient in a thickening legal soup.
Delaware County is apparently the first county to seek a court order blocking a recount, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. Other counties, however, are thinking about it, he said.
Keith Cunningham, director of the Allen County Board of Elections and incoming president of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials, said he might mobilize other counties to resist a recount, the Associated Press reported.
Although they are nominally bi-partisan, Republicans have the upper hand in all county Board of Elections. This combined with the fact that even many Democratic reps on the BOE feel the recount is pointless, suggests that there will be many more BOE's joining this effort to stop the recount before it gets started. Further, the BOEs are guaranteed to emphasize and/or exaggerate the costs above and beyond the $150,000 that is required by those requesting a recount and - in at least this narrow area - we probably lose the PR battle.