The Tribune editorial staff

OK. Here we are nearly three weeks after the U.S. presidential race was over and we're still fighting battles in Ohio - mostly caused by outsiders who feel it's their mission to "fix" all of our problems.

In the weeks since Ohio captured the national attention as being the ultimate "swing" state in the 2004 election, the blows to our state's credibility just keep coming.

Last week a watchdog group filed a lawsuit seeking to force Cleveland area election personnel to hand check rejected provisional ballots. The group claims the computerized lists used to determine if the provisional ballots should be counted were not up to date and thus the hand count is necessary.

Unless the group can quickly show substantial evidence that the computerized files are grossly out of date, the case is wasting Ohio tax dollars unnecessarily.

And, this morning, the king of all political cause pot stirrers, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, scheduled a meeting in Columbus to urge state ministers to call for an investigation into alleged voter irregularities and claims of voter fraud.

Can't Mr. Jackson find someplace else to fight a new battle and on a new battleground?

Ohio is no longer considered a battleground. The battle is over. President George Bush won - whether you like it or not.

Sen. John Kerry, Bush's challenger, conceded the victory. He gave up the fight when he realized the numbers were not likely to fall his way. His concession didn't come with a disclaimer: I concede unless someone in a week or two can prove to me that in fact I did not win. Not even Kerry is that much of a flip-flopper.

If the election count was good enough to satisfy Sen. John Kerry, then it's good enough for us. All of you outside instigators please go home and come back to Ohio when you're more interested in counting historical sites or football scores instead of alleged voting errors that seem insignificant to us.

Continuing to beat the dead horse is getting the state nowhere but more in debt. And we'd bet neither Jesse Jackson nor any of the other outside group criticizing our state's election workers would stand up and volunteer to help in resolving that battle.