Last week concluded a process that, in retrospect, was bound to unfold after President Obama launched the White House petitions website: A petition calling for a recount of the 2012 election, citing concerns about voter fraud, received enough signatures to warrant a White House response, which denied the request and affirmed that “this election was decided fairly and democratically.”
The petition response addresses the voter fraud charge on the merits. “You say that one county in Ohio has 98,213 eligible voters — we guess because that’s the number of people of voting age living in Wood County according to the 2010 Census,” the White House team notes. “But according to the Ohio Secretary of State, Wood County actually had 108,014 registered voters at the time of the 2012 election. And of those registered voters, only 64,342 cast a ballot in November—not 106,258. Of the votes cast, President Obama won 50.98 percent, which is a great deal less than 108 percent. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney won 46.17 percent of the vote.”
