Thursday Afternoon Ohio Updates...

I don't like to report anything here until I've had chances to independently verify and add to it. However, as there are several things in the background that I'm currently working on, and there are several important items rolling out of Ohio, I'm gonna post some links for you guys to check out.

NOTE: I haven't done any independent vetting on these items, so please use your own judgement about the sources they come from. But some seem quite notable, so I want to get them out there!

• AP is reporting: Ohio Justice Throws Out Election Challenge - "The Ohio Supreme Court's chief justice on Thursday threw out a challenge to the state's presidential election results.
  
  The 40 voters who brought the case will likely be able to refile the challenge.
  
  Chief Justice Thomas Moyer ruled that the request improperly challenged two separate election results. Ohio law only allows one race to be challenged in a single complaint, he said." (DRUDGE is linking to this one, of course!)



• RAW STORY is reporting: Kerry campaign issues letter to Ohio Secretary of State demanding recount tampering investigation - "Senator Kerry's and Senator Edwards' state counsel for Ohio has issued a letter to Ohio Republican Secretary of State and Bush-Cheney '04 chair Kenneth Blackwell demanding an official investigation into voting machine tampering in Hocking County. They have the letter online."
  RAW STORY also has much more on late Ohio developments!



• "mtnester" on DemocraticUnderground.com Discussion (unconfirmed info, will try to get more on this!): Ohio, Fairfield County, suspends recount - "At 4 pm [Wednesday], after failing to get a match of hand counted ballots with punch card tabulator (ESS), two hand counts and two times through machine, after stating they were awaiting a call back from that company to have a new machine delivered, less than 30 seconds later convened a board meeting, voted to suspend recount, to await a new machine from ESS, and recount will be re-done Saturday, same exact precincts, the building is now closed, you are to exit the facility. BOE [Board of Elections] blaming issues on "machine failure" in order to avoid the now required entire county hand count. Precints were not random, they were selected by BOE, one from the Dem and one from the Repup."

More Later...On these and Clint Curtis items as well...