PRESIDENTIAL RACE

NEWSPAPER WRITER APOLOGIZES FOR ASSASSIN ‘JOKE’

A writer for a liberal British newspaper apologized yesterday for a review of the presidential debates between President Bush and Senator Kerry in which the writer, apparently intending an “ironic joke,” said Mr. Bush was likely to win the election and then conjured up famous assassins of the past.

“John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. – where are you now that we need you?” Charlie Brooker wrote in an October 3 column in the London Guardian. The column was withdrawn from the newspaper’s Web site yesterday and replaced with an apology.

“Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action – an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand,” a statement released yesterday by the Guardian said. “He deplores violence of any kind.”

Meanwhile, the newspaper’s campaign to influence the White House race by having its readers write to undecided voters in a key Ohio swing county was halted following indignant complaints about foreign interference in an American election and warnings from Democrats that the initiative was backfiring and could damage Senator Kerry in his bid to win the Buckeye State.

The cancellation of the initiative was announced by the Guardian’s features editor, Ian Katz, who said the 400,000-circulation paper was closing the Web site where readers collected names of Clark County’s undecided voters to contact. The paper’s editors gave different reasons for the cancellation of the campaign, although they insisted the effort had been highly successful.

The paper’s executive editor for news, Albert Scardino, insisted the initiative had been “roaringly, successfully completed.” But he acknowledged the paper had had major problems with attacks on the Guardian’s website by hackers, who he claimed were American conservatives.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

APPEALS COURT STAYS BALLOT RULING

DETROIT – A judge’s order requiring some provisional ballots in Michigan to be counted even if they are cast in the wrong precinct was put on hold yesterday, the second time in as many days that a federal appeals court dealt a setback to Democrats who wanted to ease voting restrictions.

A 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Cincinnati issued a stay of a lower court ruling that had reversed Michigan’s policy for counting provisional ballots, saying it will hear an appeal of the issue quickly. On Saturday, the same three judge panel had rejected a similar ruling out of Ohio.

Provisional ballots – required in all states for the first time this year – are used when voters say they are properly registered but their names are not on the registration rolls. The ballots are later counted if elections officials determine the voter is validly registered.

Michigan officials had ordered that only provisional ballots cast in the correct precinct should be counted, but a federal judge in Michigan had issued an injunction Tuesday saying ballots should be counted for federal races, including president, if the votes were cast in the wrong precinct but the right city, township, or village.

The panel that stayed that ruling promised to hear an expedited appeal of the case, but it was unclear whether a decision would be reached before Election Day.

– Associated Press