Recount confirms Kerry's win

In Cuyahoga County, anyway....

John Kerry picked up 17 votes and George W. Bush lost six in Cuyahoga County's presidential recount.

That means the county still went for Kerry giving him 448,503 votes compared with 221,600 for Bush.

Witnessing the recount showed citizens where the election system can be manipulated, she said, so those holes can be plugged.

"That does not mean that the Board of Elections was doing anything wrong," she said, praising board workers and their cooperative spirit. "It means we need to rethink our system.

"This is an opportunity for us to engage as citizens in making a better electoral system."

Cuyahoga County elections director Michael Vu described many of the problems as innocent human errors.

Polls were crowded on Election Day, and poll workers may have not had voters sign in before they were given a ballot, he said. That's a problem that will be tracked next week when the county's voter history is conducted, Vu said.

The ballot mix-ups, reported earlier, were most likely a result of crowded polling places where voters inadvertently used machines from the wrong precinct. Precincts often share the same polling station.