for democratic presidential nominee john kerry. it caused susan collins to email her mother that, quote, all is lost. that data eventually proved to be just misleading. it was not right. democrats watched that night a the margins grew for george w. bush, especially in ohio. the key state to determine the winner in the electoral college. that is why kerry conceded when ohio finally did fall into the republican column. but some democratic lawmakers were not so quick to let things go. they aimed much of their anger to the election official in charge of ohio's voting, secretary of state kenneth blackwell who was also at the time a co-chair of the bush cheney campaign. a couple days before, congress was set to ratify bush's election victory, john conyers, then the ranking democrat on the house judiciary committee, released a report citing massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomaies involving kenneth blackwell. when it came time to certify bush's elect, maxine waters