November 3, 2004 - Last time it was Florida. This time it is Ohio. Last time it was Katherine Harris. This time it is Kenneth Blackwell. According to the Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State it will be eleven days before provisional ballots, absentee ballots and overseas ballots are examined and counted. If, as seems likely, Kerry takes Wisconsin and Bush carries Iowa and New Mexico those absentee and provisional ballots in Ohio will be the deciding factor that awards the Presidency to one or the other contestant. No one knows as I write this morning how many uncounted provisional ballots are out there. Ten of Ohio’s counties have not reported the number of those votes outstanding. According to the State’s Secretary of State 175,000 provisional and absentee ballots have been reported to his office. According to the Kerry campaign staff at least another 100,000 provisional ballots will be added when the most populous counties report – more than enough to overcome the apparent 140,000 vote lead the unofficial election night count gave President Bush.

It is important to remember that the uncounted provisional ballots are the result of the Republican vote suppression campaign that fanned out across the state with lists of newly registered Democratic voters after preliminary rounds of litigation reached the Supreme Court. It is likely that those ballots, if counted, would break sharply in Kerry’s favor. The lawyers will have their work cut out for them. The right of each provisional voter must be determined and it is in that litigious process that the Presidency may well be finally decided. It will take time to wind down.

No matter what the outcome we are a sharply divided people. The choleric rhetoric of the campaign has not been stilled with election night. The campaign of invective and insult goes on. Words, those weapons more lethal than any blade, continue to inflict their grievous wounds destroying what ever hopes we might have had that this nation might be brought together.

It seems, alas, that the Junior Senator from Illinois was mistaken. We are divided into the Red States and the Blue States and the Reds will move heaven and earth – with Diebold’s help, of course – to insure that we never again become the United States. It is all over but the suing and we can get back to our quiet lives of desperation.