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John F. Kerry gained ground on George W. Bush in Ohio after Election Day.  The official results, posted on December 2, 2004, include provisional ballots and some late-arriving absentee ballots.  The point spread between Bush and Kerry has been reduced by 0.30%, but this only begins to tell the story.

All the following tables show the official results on the first line, the unofficial results on the second line, and the difference on the third line.  The number of newly counted votes as a percentage of the total is posted beneath the name of the county.  State wide, this percentage was 2.62%.

COMPARISON OF RESULTS: STATE WIDE                

               Bush    % Bush     Kerry   % Kerry
Total      2,858,727   50.82%  2,739,952   48.70%

The end of the tax year approaches, and mass mailings cram my letterbox, many of them urgently seeking write-off dollars to keep Noah's Ark afloat. In next year's calendars, affecting photographs of endangered species clamor for our attention: black rhinos, elephants, blue whales, gorillas, condors, otters, hairy-nosed wombats, western giant elands. And people do the right thing, hauling out their checkbooks, taking their charitable deductions.

But as the big conservation outfits will tell you, the costs of protecting habitats soar up and up. Reportedly, in Africa, they double every year. The great goal of all conservation is sustainability, but charitable conservation by definition is not sustainable. Noah's Ark is sinking faster than the donors can bale.

In 1996, Mike Korchinsky, 34 years old at the time, sat in an eco-tour campsite in Kenya, looked around him and, as he remembers, concluded that "high-end ecotourism clearly wasn't saving the land I was on."

The president went to Camp Pendleton, togged up in his nice, new USMC tanker jacket with "Commander in Chief" sewn on the front. He got a gentler reception than his defense secretary received the same day a few thousand miles further east, in Camp Buehring, Kuwait.

As reported by AP's Robert Burns, Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team (which is mostly made up of people from the Tennessee Army National Guard), asked Rumsfeld why "do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrapmetal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" The question got an ovation from the approximately 2,300 soldiers mustered for Rumsfeld's visit.

Flustered, the Defense Secretary got Wilson to repeat his question, then answered, "You go to war with the Army you have," and "You can have all the armor in the world on a tank, and it can (still) be blown up."

The following is the transcript from Bob Fitrakis’ speech at the December 4 Voting Rights demonstration at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus:

Thirty-two days ago, we voted in Ohio, and that election remains uncertified, threatening the core of our democratic system and our commitment to equal protection under our Constitution.

Now we are engaged in a great civil rights struggle, testing whether our nation, or any nation, so dedicated to democracy, can endure such voter suppression and election irregularities. We are gathered in the capitol of a great battleground state. We have come to dedicate ourselves to investigating the vote in all 88 counties, and pledge ourselves to counting every vote. Whatever the results may be. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this, just as the people of the Ukraine.

The epic legal battle over Ohio's presidential vote count is back in the state Supreme Court, with an election challenge claiming George W. Bush was wrongly declared the winner on Nov. 2 and seeking a court-ordered reversal of that victory.

Meanwhile, efforts to recount Ohio's vote may have been fatally tainted by the Republican Party, raising questions of what the GOP has to hide, and prompting demands for criminal prosecution.

New affidavits point to possible criminal activity by top Ohio election officials, raising yet more questions about the 2004 vote. Rhonda J. Frazier, a former employee of the Ohio Secretary of State's office, has confirmed in an affidavit taken by Cynthia Butler, working with freepress.org, that the Office had secret slush funds. Frazier says it also failed to comply with the requirements of "The Voting Reform Grant" that required all the voting machines in Ohio to be inventoried and tagged for security reasons.

Global warming isn’t happening, but evil environmentalists are making it look as if it is. That’s the story in Michael Crichton’s new thriller, State of Fear, already a huge best seller.

Reviews in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times made me think of another book, Overload, by Arthur Hailey. Author of Airport, Hotel, and many others, Hailey was extremely popular in the 1970s, and his books were made into successful films.

Dear Messrs. Wasserman and Fitrakis:

Just want to take this opportunity to thank you for your excellent article on "Democracy Hangs By A Thread In Ohio".

I has said so many things I've been saying or feeling or thinking recently. And it has expressed the concerns I've been feeling about this election.

Mainstream journalists have been wont to say that Democrats are suffering from "depression" re: loss in the election.

But I believe a more appropriate word, at least for me, is more "paranoia."

Now, psychiatrically, that's a different diagnosis!

Bush has all three branches of the federal government, and has had since 2000, and if he keeps the White House, the GOP will have had all three branches for longer than any time in modern history. Meanwhile, as I've mentioned in e-mails, W. now has unprecedented powers no President has ever had--Homeland Security, Patriot Act, Drug War police powers, Line Item Veto, increased War Powers Act troop deployment times. And he's the first Electoral College-only President to ever be re-elected.

[Editor's note: the following letter is in reference to http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/986

I agree we need paper trails, and that Blackwell and Co. manipulated the results in various and obvious ways, - openly for those who want to see it.  However, the Anybody But Bush'ers seem to be filled with if only's.  If only Nader had not run in 2000, if only Kerry had won, if only the election were fair Kerry would have, if only the "little people" would just listen to them, -the ABB'ers.  If only guys like me would not point out the obvious as well-that we need to start first with the little people and not with the elitists.

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