The governor, Republican Bob Taft, back with us here from Columbus, Ohio this morning

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The governor, Republican Bob Taft, back with us here from Columbus, Ohio this morning.

Governor, welcome back here.

Nice to have you, as always.

GOV. BOB TAFT (R), OHIO: Bill, my pleasure.

HEMMER: I don't know if you saw the front page of "The Washington Post" this morning, but a big front line story about the problems that are anticipated in Ohio.

Based on what you have seen to this point, Governor, is there anything that would raise a red flag for you come November 3?

TAFT: Well, we've had a lot of fraudulent voter registrations already, mostly by those 527 groups. There will be unprecedented scrutiny of this election on both sides. There'll be more election monitors and judges than we have ever seen before. We have four counties where you have more voters registered than you have 18 and over population.

So it's a real concern and we need to make sure that our election is accuser, that everybody's vote counts and that people who are not eligible to vote don't vote. So we're hoping that because of the level of scrutiny, it will be an accurate count for the State of Ohio.

HEMMER: You said an awful lot in your answer. Take me to these four counties specifically.

What can the state do to make sure that voter fraud is not present if you have more people registered than actually vote in that county?

TAFT: Well, the important thing is that the election workers will be trained to make sure that a voter is a citizen, 18 and over, and a resident of the precinct and county where they plan to vote. But in about 3,600 precincts, at least, I know the Republican Party will have election judges inside the polling place just to monitor, to make sure that people who are not eligible to vote are challenged by the poll workers.

HEMMER: Also in that article in the "Post" this morning, the secretary of state, Ken Blackwell, talked about hiccups that Ohio will experience.

What is he talking about, Governor?

TAFT: Well, I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about, but we are going to have a large number of provisional ballots cast, as well. We had about 100,000 last time. It could be at least twice that many this time. So those ballots can't be counted until a week to 10 days after the election. It takes a lot of time to make sure those are valid ballots. Where there's a question about someone's registration, they'll vote a provisional ballot. It will be set aside and counted later. So if the election is close in Ohio, and we believe it will be close, it's possible we won't know the results for a number of days.

HEMMER: What is your sense of how many lawyers will represent both sides come November 2?

TAFT: Probably too many lawyers on both sides.

HEMMER: Do you have the number? Is it in the thousands or not?

TAFT: I don't know. It's probably in the hundreds on both sides in the State of Ohio.

HEMMER: Then can a lawyer actually prevent somebody from voting?

TAFT: Well, if you have someone who is an attorney or not an attorney who's qualified to be a monitor or a judge inside the polling place, if they have reasonable cause to believe a voter is ineligible to vote, they can ask the poll worker to challenge that voter. And then it's up to the poll worker whether or not to do so.

HEMMER: And there have been challenges already, about 35,000 at one point, lodged by the Republicans. I think the number has been winnowed down a little bit, maybe to 25,000 at this point.

TAFT: Well, we have...

HEMMER: That sound right to you?

TAFT: Well, yes, that's about right. A lot of these voters don't have addresses. When they send the postcard out to them, after they register, that comes back undeliverable. You're talking about thousands of cases like that all across the State of Ohio.

HEMMER: And is there a factor of intimidation involved in that, Governor, do you believe?

TAFT: Absolutely not. When you have more people registered to vote than you have people in a county, you've got an issue with election fraud. So both sides are monitoring this. And I really believe that the election in Ohio will be accurate, will be fair, because we've never had this kind of scrutiny. It could be the most honest election in Ohio's history for that reason, not that we've had any problems in the past. We've had a good election system.

But this level of scrutiny is unprecedented. I think the voter turnout will be unprecedented. There will be some lines and some delays at the polls because of the numbers of voters. But the level of scrutiny, I think, assures us that ultimately, at the end of the day, we're going to have a good count.

HEMMER: One last thing here, and I don't have much time. The last polling numbers we have from the folks at Gallup take us back about six days. Senator Kerry leading George Bush by 1 point. Kick the spin to the curb.

Who's leading in your state, do you believe?

TAFT: Well, we knew it would come down to this, Bill. It's just a battleground state and it's going to be neck and neck, wire to wire. We've got about 70,000 volunteers on our side. We've made two million phone calls. It's a turnout issue right now. We know we're going to carry the state for the president because of his strong record on terrorism and the economy is improving. We picked up 5,500 jobs last month.

So things are moving in the right direction. But it's going to be extremely close.

HEMMER: Bob Taft is the governor in Ohio.

Thank you.

TAFT: Thank you.
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