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Ohio Files Appeal to Supreme Court on Voter Registration Data
Ohio's attorney general filed an emergency appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court late Wednesday night seeking to block a lower court decision that could cost many thousands of Ohio voters a chance to cast a regular ballot Nov. 4.
Experts say a federal order in an election-law suit could result in the casting of more provisional ballots. Jennifer Brunner, Ohio’s secretary of state, has fought the suit. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) The battleground state already has become the setting for a series of lawsuits over voter eligibility. About 660,000 new voters have registered since January with an edge to Democrats.
The filing on behalf of Ohio's Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner contends that upholding a Tuesday decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit would create havoc on Election Day and cause many voters to cast "provisional" ballots that may or may not ultimately be tallied depending on judgments by local elections boards.
Ohio Republicans have been battling Brunner, contending the state system for verifying voter registration information is difficult for local officials to use in gleaning lists of individuals whose information contains a discrepancy. Those voters could be challenged about their eligibility to cast a regular ballot Nov. 4 and receive a provisional ballot instead that would be counted only if a voter's eligibility later was established.
The 6th Circuit on Tuesday had directed Brunner to give local elections officials ready and direct access by Friday to computerized lists of new voters whose registrations do not match state driver records or Social Security information. A 2002 federal law required states to create a statewide database of voter registration information and to verify new voter information by crossmatching it with the other public records.
Ohio counties do not have an easy way to view their mismatches in the current system, court testimony had shown.
Brunner had said adapting Ohio's voter registration system to accomplish that change would require a few days of work on software programming at a time when a surge of voter registrations also are arriving.
Yet her office had indicated it would comply.
State Republican Party Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine said the Supreme Court appeal was "stunning in its attempt to defy the law."
The Republican Party has raised alarms about voter registration drives in Ohio and other states by ACORN, an advocacy group for low-income people. Some registration cards the group submitted in Ohio contained bogus names, incorrect addresses and duplications. The extent of the problem is under review by several counties.
The problems that have arisen, the Ohio GOP said, drive their interest in having county elections boards get easier access to mismatched voter records to separate data errors from fraudulent files.
However Democrats, including the Obama campaign's chief counsel, Bob Bauer, said this week that the protests over ACORN were an attempt to winnow voter rolls in states where Republicans feel threatened and to discourage new voters from casting ballots.
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7 Comments so far
Show AllHmmm... appealing to the US Supreme Court to resolve a conflict involving ELECTION law.
We all know what triumphs of jurisprudence emanate from this century's SCOTUS when the justices get their eighteen gnarled hands on an election.
Why not just have Obama concede Ohio now and spare everyone the trouble?
Ohio's last Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell, actively suppressed voting in Ohio during the 2004 election while serving simultaneously as George Bush's Ohio Chair. This is well documented. That conflict of interest was blatant and the League of Women Voters fought it, unsuccessfully. The 6th Circuit is corrupt and partisan. As Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner has been striving to restore a semblance of integrity to the voting process in Ohio but has been hampered by a GOP-controlled legislature that underfunds her office while the GOP then seeks to impose labor-intensive tasks on her office. Voter intimidation is far more onerous than "voter fraud." The latter issue has been grossly overblown by the GOP and its lazy toady media.
The real question here is "Who would Mickey Mouse vote for, if (s)he could vote?"
Voter suppression is a form of treason. Blackwell should be in prison. People need to ask themselves why Republicans want to prevent you from voting while everyone else wants your vote. How about this bumper sticker: "Felons for McCain."
-30-
I am in Ohio, and, that is about it in a nutshell.
Except for one thing--two Dems (Tubbs/Jones and Boxer) filed lawsuits over 2004 , and, were convinced not to pursue it by the DNC. Kerry couldve pursued it, and did not.
I still remember it well, as, one, I was at the polls (moveon;org), and, two, It was the day I relized the the Dems woudl never fight the GOP over anything.
I am so very proud to live in the USA and to have had this wonderful gift of life begin here in this most amazing country, even having been born a prisoner of war, a Native American----- in Texas in 1952.
The making of history is the most important gift that any people can give to the future. The USA has been engaged now for 232 years in this grand experiment, this wonderful example for the world to observe now and most importantly in the future.
The fact that for the most part the USA has been a negative example for history is secondary to the important fact that history needs negative examples so that the intelligent "deciders" of the future will not repeat the mistakes of the past.
In that regard, the USA has been the leading negative example in ALL of history;
so you see the USA will be famous, and studied and examined for thousands and thousands of years.
I do not expect them to deviate from that path and their future is steadfastly becoming their past.
And for those readers who are laughing and smirking I would remind them that many others like myself; members of Native Tribes/Nations have survived the assaults of the Europeans, AND the Americans, and have survived mostly intact and in some cases our numbers have increased and we will benefit the most from the lessons we have learned while captives in our own lands.
Thank you America, we will speak often of you, use you as a negative example of course, and for a few of your people we will hold as true heroes of "other people" for not ALL Americans are alike. But for the most part, there are not enough true heroes in America to make a true difference. I suppose in the scheme of things in long run it is much better to be known at all even as a negative example, than to have existed and no one know much of you at all, like the Olmec , Etruscans , Minoans or others.
So with all of the "news" coming in over the Internet, and other sources with varying degrees of reliability----this article is no surprise except to just a few.
Laws are defied and cases go to the Supreme Court so the Supreme Court can decide if certain laws are constitutional. That's how the system works. State Republican Party Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine of Ohio is an idiot.
Dafoe
Voting at the federal level should be done by the federal government that way one only has one lot of questionable tactics to sort through, now we have 50 and some are bordering on the sleazy and corrupt playing politics. What a joke this nation is, rigged elections are becoming the norm, only in america, its the laughing stock of the Russians.
I doubt that the GOP would let this vagrant vote
"A US judge has thrown out a case against God, ruling that because
the defendant has no address, legal papers cannot be served."