October, 21 2008, 02:32pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Will Rightful Voters Be Able to Vote: Ohio and Colorado
WASHINGTON
JENNY FLANAGAN
Flanagan is the executive director of Colorado Common Cause.
She said today: "The State of Colorado should accept registration
applications that contain all necessary identifying information, but
lack a checkmark in a superfluous box. Currently, the state is treating
these applications as 'incomplete.' If this policy goes unchanged,
thousands of eligible Colorado voters could be denied their rights.
This indefensible policy unfairly punishes a significant portion of the
Colorado electorate over an unnecessary technicality. Coloradans did
their part by filling out voter registration forms with all the
information necessary to confirm their identities and in compliance
with training manuals put out by the SOS [Secretary of State] office.
Now, election officials need to do their part to ensure these people's
votes count on election day. ... These applications include all the
necessary information for establishing eligibility and should therefore
be counted."
BOB FITRAKIS
Based in Ohio, Fitrakis co-wrote the article "Critical U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Against Rovian GOP Vote Meddling May Prove Temporary."
He said today: "The GOP has sued Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer
Brunner, demanding that she release to county boards of elections lists
of registered voters whose information does not precisely match
government data bases. The right to vote of such registrants -- by most
estimates as many as 200,000 in Ohio alone -- could then be challenged
on a case-by-case basis. By all accounts, the discrepancies are usually
caused by typographical errors in numbers entered for the Social
Security administration and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Rarely do
such discrepancies indicate fraudulent behavior or illegitimate
registrations. ... Last week the Supreme Court ruled that the
Republicans 'are not sufficiently likely to prevail' in their argument
that such discrepancies pose a significant threat to the legitimacy of
the electoral process. The Court also ruled that the GOP had no
standing as a private organization to file such a suit."
Fitrakis added: "The idea of massive fraud by voters continues to be
proven as a hyped-up myth. The Cincinnati Enquirer has provided a
detailed analysis of Ohio's more than 8 million registered voters and
found that problems involving illegitimate voting are minimal. ...
Since 1953, only six Ohioans have been sent to prison for voter fraud,
according to the Columbus Dispatch."
Background: The Clevelend Plain Dealer
reports: "After the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an Ohio Republican
Party lawsuit seeking to force Brunner to cross-check about 700,000
newly registered voters this year against a state driver's license
database, Republican fundraiser David Myhal re-filed a similar case in
the Ohio Supreme Court. ... A federal judge, whose earlier ruling in an
Ohio elections case was overturned on Friday by the U.S. Supreme Court,
has kicked a similar Republican lawsuit against Democratic Secretary of
State Jennifer Brunner out of his court and back to the Ohio Supreme
Court."
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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