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Posted on 10/09/2008 6:11:02 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Brunner's ballot policy illegal, judge rules Thursday, October 9, 2008 8:09 PM By Darrel Rowland and Mark Niquette THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is breaking federal law by not giving county elections boards the chance to determine whether new voter registrations are fraudulent, a federal judge ruled tonight.
"It is hard to imagine a public interest more compelling than safeguarding the legitimacy of the election of the president of the United States," said Judge George C. Smith of U.S. District Court in Columbus, in agreeing with the Ohio Republican Party's request for a court order.
Smith, appointed by President Reagan, said the Help America Vote Act requires states not only to verify the identity of newly registered voters with the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the federal Social Security Administration, but to provide counties with the names of new voters whose records did not match.
Brunner's office had been doing the verification but had not made the names available to county elections boards. The judge gave her a week to do so.
Smith cited the "millions of qualified electors across the state of Ohio whose confidence in the electoral process will be undermined if new voter registrations are not verified in accordance with HAVA, and if unqualified individuals are permitted to cast votes.
"This would demean the voting process and unlawfully dilute the votes of qualified voters," he said.
Brunner's office said she is filing an immediate appeal with the 6th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals.
"My office will do everything within its power to ensure that the state's 88 county boards of elections can continue to allow early voting to proceed uninterrupted and to assist them with their preparation to ensure a smooth election for the voters of Ohio," she said in a statement.
Smith said speed is necessary because next Thursday is the deadline to challenge absentee voters; on Oct. 25 elections workers can remove ballots from envelopes that contain the only identifying information about who cast them.
He specifically cited questionable activity of one group that registered thousands of new Ohio voters: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
Earlier in the day, national Republicans turned up the heat on allegations of voter-registration fraud by ACORN.
Sean Cairncross, chief counsel for the Republican National Committee, called ACORN a "quasi-criminal organization" in a conference call with reporters.
He pointed to past legal problems for ACORN, which registers low-income, minority and young voters, and press reports about bogus registration cards being submitted this fall in Ohio and several other states.
The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, for example, reportedly is investigating about 50 duplicate or fictitious forms submitted by ACORN. The group's headquarters in Las Vegas also was raided recently amid reports of phony voter registrations, some of which simply listed the names of Dallas Cowboys football players.
Franklin County had problems with ACORN in 2004 after it discovered dozens of voter registration forms with fake names or false information. A part-time worker for the group was indicted on charges he forged a registration form.
So far this year, officials said they have had 11 challenges to new voter registrations, and about half had been submitted by ACORN.
On Monday, the board removed a voter registration that had been entered with the work address of a man but with a different spelling of his last name. The man learned of the registration because the board sends a card to each new registrant, and he received it at work with the misspelling.
The board can identify the card as coming from ACORN but can't tell who completed it, said Director Michael Stinziano. He and Deputy Matthew Damschroder said it's impossible to know how many bad cards may get through.
But Damschroder, a Republican, said ACORN has been "markedly better" in the county since 2004, and there's no evidence of anyone casting a ballot using a fraudulent registration.
When Cairncross was asked whether there is any such evidence, he said it's difficult to prove. But the Republican official said the allegations undermine confidence in the system, overwhelm election administrators and waste tax dollars investigating ACORN.
According to its national Web site, the group has registered 1.3 million people nationwide for the Nov. 4 election. It also has encountered complaints of fraud stemming from registration efforts in Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Mexico, Michigan and Missouri.
Asked for a response, ACORN spokesman Charles D. Jackson asked for questions to be submitted in writing but didn't respond.
Meanwhile, law enforcement officials in southwest Ohio are seeking information on hundreds of voters who registered and voted during Ohio's weeklong same-day voting window.
Greene County Sheriff Gene Fischer and representatives of county Prosecutor Stephen Haller have contacted the local Board of Elections asking for the voter registration cards of everyone who voted during the six-day window, which ended Monday.
Haller told The Dispatch that he was not aware of any specific fraud accusations. He said that the sheriff acted on general concerns that arise at election time because there are several colleges and universities in Greene County, including Cedarville, Central State, Wilberforce and Wright State.
Haller said questions have been raised about students who might vote twice once at home and once at school.
Haller is the former law partner of Mike DeWine, the former Republican senator who is chairing Republican John McCain's Ohio campaign.
Llyn McCoy, the county's deputy elections director, informed the legal staff of state elections chief Jennifer Brunner of the records request in an e-mail Wednesday.
Dispatch reporter Alan Johnson and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
mniquette@dispatch.com
Ohio election ping!
A win for the law?
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