The official, Walden O'Dell, later described himself to the Cleveland Plain Dealer as "a real novice on the political side," and he amended company policy to prohibit himself and other top officials from making or raising political contributions or engaging in any other political activity other than voting.
Just how many people are actively protesting the election is difficult to gauge, and interviews on the street suggest that a lot of people, Democrats and Republicans alike, just want to put it behind them.
"I voted for Kerry. I wanted him to win. I thought he would win," said Anne Matthieson, an account assistant at a downtown insurance firm. "But he didn't win."
Still, for those who believe otherwise, there are several websites dedicated to the cause. Several have links that allow a person, at the push of a button, to send a message to hundreds of reporters and public officials, demanding further investigation into voting problems. One accuses the media of "cowardice and complicity" in reporting on election results.
The sites are also raising money, enough to pay for a recount of the Ohio vote (which is formally being undertaken on behalf of the Green and Libertarian party presidential candidates, who are both critical of Ohio voting procedures) and for the legal challenge that Arnebeck, the Columbus lawyer, is spearheading.
State officials say the recount will cost more than the $10-per-precinct fee that the challengers are paying.
Kerry, who may be interested in running again in 2008, is walking a bit of a fine line in the matter, encouraging the recount process but dampening any expectation it will yield a political miracle.
"It's important that every vote be counted," said his spokesman, David Wade. "There's no reason to believe the outcome of the election will change."
A Democrat close to the Kerry campaign, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kerry had received plenty of "do not make this concession" advice from party members.
"It's not just the Internet conspiracy community," said the Kerry ally. "The every-vote-counts community is very strong inside the Democratic Party, and one does not want to discourage them."
Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who also was co-chairman of the state campaign for Bush and a likely gubernatorial candidate in 2006, said he was just as interested as anyone in counting every vote.
"This was an election where you have some glitches but none of these glitches were of a conspiratorial nature, and none of them would overturn or change the election results," Blackwell said Monday, announcing his certification of the results.
Under the certified results, Bush had 2.86 million votes, or about 51% , to Kerry's 2.74 million, or 49%. After all provisional votes were counted, the Bush margin represented a drop of about 17,000 votes from the totals announced just after election day.
Arnebeck, who has made two unsuccessful runs for Congress and was an Ohio coordinator for Ross Perot, is undeterred. If the court orders a full and thorough investigation, he said, Kerry will win. He wishes Kerry would join the fight.
"He and his people are too ready to disbelieve that Republicans could be this bad," Arnebeck said. "They are this bad. Ballot-box stuffing is an old American tradition, and they've just updated it. I'm not surprised that somebody hacked this vote."
