Ohio judge rules punch-card voting does not Deny Blacks the right to vote

Although Blacks Vote on Broken Machines that do not count their votes:
Voting rights are not denied to those who use punch-card ballots, a federal judge ruled in the nation's first trial to challenge the system blamed for woes in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. The American Civil Liberties Union argued that the punch-card system is error-prone and ballots are more likely to go uncounted than votes cast in other ways. The group claimed Ohio violated the voting rights of blacks, who predominantly live in punch-card counties. U.S. District Judge David D. Dowd Jr. disagreed. "All voters in a county, regardless of race, use the same voting system to cast a ballot, and no one is denied the opportunity to cast a valid vote because of their race," Dowd said in his ruling Tuesday. The ACLU in Cleveland did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Punch-card ballots are used in 69 of 88 Ohio counties, representing nearly 73 percent of registered voters. About 92,000 ballots cast in last month's presidential election failed to record a vote for president, most on punch-card systems. A lawyer representing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who lost Ohio by 119,000 votes to President Bush, has asked that representatives of the campaign be allowed to inspect those ballots as part of a recount being done in Ohio. In a separate action, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and attorney Cliff Arnebeck of the Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy have asked the state Supreme Court to reconsider the election results, accusing Bush's campaign of "high-tech vote stealing." [more]