Cincinnati, OH (AP)

A liberal advocacy group asked the state’s elections chief Wednesday to investigate whether backers of a 2004 gay marriage ban properly reported all the money they received and spent during the campaign.

Citizens for Community Values, the Cincinnati-based group behind the Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage, immediately dismissed the claims by ProgressOhio.org as unfounded.

The constitutional amendment the group backed, which passed overwhelmingly, was credited with turning out Christian conservative voters who tipped the state’s presidential results to President Bush.

In a letter to Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, ProgressOhio executive director Brian Rothenberg said the numbers didn’t add up in a review the group conducted of campaign finance reports for various entities linked to the 2004 marriage campaign.

CCV Action, a nonprofit 501(c)4 arm of Citizens for Community Values, reported giving $1.4 million to the Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage in one report, $667,000 in another report, and $42,286 in another, Rothenberg said.

CCV vice president David Miller said the allegations are based on inaccurate and incomplete information reviewed by ProgressOhio.

“Their research is just absolutely ridiculous. We’ve done everything perfect,” he said.

Miller said one political action committee whose records ProgressOhio reviewed didn’t even exist in 2004, and that spending associated with the amendment was reported on an array of different forms required by the state attorney general, secretary of state and IRS.

“It’s like this guy just dug through a Dumpster and thinks he found the pieces to the puzzle - and they’re not there,” Miller said. “I’d be embarrassed.”

Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for Brunner, said she was aware of the ProgressOhio letter and was reviewing their claims Wednesday.

Miller argued that Brunner would have to recuse herself from any investigation that might ensue as a result of the letter, because of her earlier involvement as a lawyer representing CCV opponents in an Ohio Elections Commission complaint against the group.

Rothenberg said it could be suggested that former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell had a conflict of interest with regard to the group also - since he acted as a public spokesman for the gay marriage amendment - and the group was trying to have it both ways.

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