I'd like to see that on the FBI's most-wanted list at the local post office. If someone doesn't stop him, "Chad'' could be back in November to foul up the election again. And Ohio could be the Fallujah hotbed of election-lawyer terrorism.

The ACLU already has filed a lawsuit against Ohio, Hamilton County and three other counties in the state, claiming that punch-card voting caused 3,000 spoiled ballots in Hamilton County and 93,000 statewide in the 2000 election.

Even 93,000 is within the slack allowed by election guidelines. But the lawyers must be drooling. Three-quarters of Ohio voters use punch cards that won't be replaced by electronic voting machines until 2005.

Ohio could be in for a Florida hurricane of litigation. Democrats boast about recruiting 30,000 lawyers nationwide to "monitor'' polling places and look for "irregularities.'' Republicans are lawyered-up, too.

So, if a certain candidate who rhymes with "scary'' loses a nail-biter in Ohio, the ACLU lawsuit is idling at the dock like a swift boat, ready to climb aboard and tie the nation in knots.

Republicans could do the same thing. But they won't. It was Democrats and Al Gore who were first to run crying to the courts last time. It was Democrats who were caught stuffing ballot boxes and trading cigarettes for homeless votes in Wisconsin. It was Democrats who tried to block votes by soldiers overseas.

And conditions might be building for another perfect storm.

"This is unlike anything we've ever seen,'' said John Williams, director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections. "There are so many groups, and everybody is so aggressive on every issue.''

Voter registration in Hamilton County is up 35,000, he said - 50 percent higher than in 2000.

A new Ohio law allows government workers to take Election Day off to help at the polls, and Williams said he already has been contacted by labor groups that want "witnesses'' in polling places.

"The city can release them, or the county, and they are paid by their employer,'' Williams said. "It was passed because there is a constant struggle to get good poll workers.''

But pro-Kerry, public-employee Democrats must be balanced by Republican poll workers, Williams said.

Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, thinks that Ohio is more fraud-proof than most states. Rules were changed after 2000 to prevent Florida's lawyer feeding frenzy in Ohio, he said. For example, "Punch cards are de-chadded before they are sent to the board of elections,'' so there should be no bug-eyed hack inspecting ballots with a Sherlock Holmes spyglass to find invisible dimples.

"We took a look at those issues, and we felt our election law and practices are very sound and have not allowed widespread fraud in Ohio,'' LoParo said.

What they don't say is this: The most-wanted list should also include "competent voters.'' It's not the punch cards - it's the card punchers.

Both parties are registering people who have never before voted and are as clueless in a ballot booth as a hamster at a switchboard.

Voting is easier than ever. But maybe someone who can't figure out how to punch a hole in a card should not select our president.

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E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com