Ah Shucks, Massa...they sorta caught me in the woodpile...

Ohio Finds Possible Double Votes, Counts

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Election officials in one Ohio county found that about 2,600 ballots were double-counted, and two other counties have discovered possible cases of people voting twice in the presidential election.

Reuters Photo

Prosecutors were trying to determine Wednesday whether charges should be filed against a couple in Madison County accused of voting twice. In addition, Summit County election workers investigated possible double votes found under 18 names.

In the other case, Sandusky County election officials discovered that about 2,600 ballots from nine precincts were counted twice, likely because of worker error, elections director Barb Tuckerman said.

Tuckerman believes the votes were counted twice when they were mistakenly placed alongside a pile of uncounted ballots. The room where the ballots were being fed into optical-scan machines on election night was so crowded that ballots had to be placed on the floor, Tuckerman said.

"It was totally hectic," she said.

The problem was discovered when Tuckerman found that one precinct showed 131 percent of registered voters had cast ballots.

President Bush (news - web sites) won the election by taking Ohio with 136,000 votes more than Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites), according to the unofficial tally.

Will Kerry fight for a recount now that the GREENS have put up the cake?!? (aj)