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Lawsuit Targets Blackwell as Elections Chief

Ohio activists say they don't want Secretary of State Ken Blackwell overseeing November's general election.

They've filed a civil-rights lawsuit claiming Blackwell deprived people of their voting rights during the 2004 presidential election. Specific accusations include: distributing fewer voting machines in black neighborhoods, purging voter registrations and disproportionately assigning provisional ballots to blacks.

Blackwell, a Republican candidate for governor, calls the lawsuit "frivolous" and "political." He says it's not so much an attack on him, as on Ohio's elections process.

A spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party says it wants Blackwell to stop setting rules that affect his own campaign.