Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Okay, I just got off the phone with me Ma (who is recovering from heart surgery and post-op complications of such) and we had a lengthy discussion about the “news” and she advised me to forego a pre-commentary on this post in order for me to bring my BP down to DEFCON 2 or 3 levels …

I’m gonna go puke now.

Questionable registrations: Fork over voter list, judges tell Brunner

By Darrel Rowland - (Columbus Dispatch)

Almost as if she anticipated a court ruling a few hours later, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner promised yesterday to give county elections workers access to a list of possibly problematic voter registrations.

The full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals then ruled 9-6 that Brunner must provide access to a state database showing new voters whose registration information does not match records with the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles or federal Social Security Administration. The decision — a 50-page maze of majority, concurring and dissenting opinions — reversed a 2-1 ruling by a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit last week.

The only sticking point might be timing; the appellate judges upheld a lower-court ruling giving Brunner until Friday to make the list available. Brunner said yesterday that access might not come until Monday.

All but one of the majority judges were appointed by Republican presidents; all but one of the dissenting judges were named by Democrats.

Yesterday’s majority decision, penned by former Ohio Solicitor Jeffrey Sutton, said, “Nothing about this case, or the relief (Ohio Republicans, who brought the suit) seek will allow them to prevent a single voter from casting a ballot in the November election …

“At most, the identification of a mismatch allows a county board to investigate whether the mismatch has a legitimate explanation (say, a recent change of address).”

The practical effect, Sutton wrote, may be to require the voter in question to cast a provisional ballot, when elections officials would determine the validity of the registration and thus the vote.

In a statement late last night, Brunner, a Democrat, called it “essential” that voters whose registration information matches either the motor vehicle or Social Security records “are left inviolate to vote a regular ballot on or before Election Day.”

If it matches neither, she wants county elections workers to handle “prompt communication to allow them to assist with resolving discrepancies, which, in many cases are not due to any fault of the voters.”

“It is imperative that voters not be disenfranchised because of federal government red tape, misstated technical information or glitches in databases beyond the control of voters or the secretary of state.”

But what’s left unsaid is whether voters could be disenfranchised at all and how closely the questioned registrations should be examined for fraud. That’s because even when county elections officials get access to the list of mismatched registrations, exactly what they are to do with it remains a mystery.

Brunner said earlier that the federal Help America Vote Act forbids the mismatches, by themselves, from being used to disqualify voters. However, when county elections staffers see a mismatch, they have the freedom to investigate further — which, in theory, could lead to a disqualification.

Before the ruling, Brunner had been planning another directive for Friday on how counties should handle the mismatches. She was consulting with the bipartisan Ohio Association of Election Officials and others on wording.

Last night, Brunner’s office released e-mails from June 2006 suggesting that it was the administration of her Republican predecessor, J. Kenneth Blackwell, that made the initial decision not to inform counties of a mismatch.

Ohio Republican Chairman Robert T. Bennett called the court ruling “a victory for the integrity of Ohio’s election.”

He added: “Secretary Brunner’s announcement on Tuesday that she will voluntarily comply with the district court’s order suggests she knew this ruling was coming. Unfortunately, her delay in providing this matching system leaves little time for election officials to act on questionable registrations.”

After being hammered for days about her purported inaction on claims of fraudulent voter registrations, yesterday Brunner put her office in the loop of investigations .

She reminded county elections officials that it’s their duty to delve into voter registration fraud, illegal voting or voter suppression. And she directed them to report their findings to her, as well as county prosecutors, so the Ohio attorney general can get involved if needed.

“We find that both Republicans and Democrats want fair elections,” Brunner said during a news conference. “That’s very clear, and as secretary of state it’s my duty as chief election officer to provide for that.

“We also want to assure the public that there are adequate safeguards in the law to detect fraud or false registrations.”

Brunner said reports of widespread voter fraud in Ohio are overblown. “I don’t believe there is an effort under way to steal the election.”

Meanwhile, Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign issued a warning about the problems in Ohio and other states — many of which stem from the activities of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which the GOP virtually always links with Democrat Barack Obama.

“If left uncorrected, these numerous investigations and accusations of voter fraud with ACORN could produce a nightmare scenario on election day,” said McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.

ACORN leaders fired back, noting in a news release that “as recently as Feb. 20, 2006, Sen. McCain was the keynote speaker at an ACORN-sponsored Immigration Rally in Miami, Florida at Miami Dade College-Wolfson Campus.” The release was titled: “ACORN to McCain: Have You Lost That Loving Feeling?”

In a conference call with reporters, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said, “I think a lot of the noise they’re trying to create here is in service of creating a smoke screen. We have no doubt that their efforts of suppression and intimidation are going to be unprecedented.”

Obama campaign general counsel Bob Bauer said, “They will be able to surface instances where paid registration workers make out fraudulent applications. These are not correlated with illegal voting. They have not in the past posed a threat, that anyone has ever demonstrated, to the integrity of the election.”

The Republican National Committee, as the McCain campaign and Ohio Republican Party have done, used the controversy yesterday to raise money, saying Democrats “will soon be trying to pad their totals at ballot boxes across the country with votes from voters that do not exist. We must fight back against attempts by Democrats at vote fraud and ensure the integrity of our democracy We will not stand for the stealing of elections — the tainting of our democracy — by those who wish to subvert the rule of law.”

Brunner: I’ll obey court order, but thousands could lose their right to vote

by Reginald Fields - (Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS — More than 200,000 Ohioans who registered to vote this year for the first time or updated their voting information since Jan. 1 could be affected by the latest court ruling requiring the state to set up a new registration verification system by Friday, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said.

Brunner said she would comply with the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling late Tuesday but said she is deeply concerned that the decision is a veiled attempt at disenfranchising voters.

The court’s 9-6 opinion, written by Judge Jeffrey Sutton, suggested that voters whose driver’s license number or Social Security number does not exactly match those found on databases maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or Social Security Administration could be required to use provisional ballots instead of conventional ones.

“The thing that concerns me is that Judge Sutton indicated that these mismatched names could be subjected to provisional voting and nowhere in [Help America Vote Act] is that the case. The Help America Vote Act is really not meant to be used to disenfranchise or to help determine voter eligibility,” Brunner said in an interview today.

“Essentially that provision of HAVA is basically supposed to maintain voter registration databases,” she said. “It is not for determining voter eligibility. The interpretation that seems to be coming from at least that particular judge takes HAVA and uses it as a means to exclude voters from a regular ballot. That is a concern.”

The full 6th Circuit’s opinion overturned the decision of a three-judge panel at the federal court last week and restored the ruling announced last week by U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith.

Since Jan. 1, Ohio has 666,000 newly registered or updated voters — all of whom fall under scrutiny by this latest court ruling. Brunner said an initial review found that at least 200,000 of them might have mismatched information. Once the office identifies all of the mismatched voters, Brunner will send the list to the county boards of election where the individuals have registered.

But state Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett said Brunner’s decision to not implement the verification system sooner without the court forcing her to do so has cost county boards of election valuable time reining in examples of fraud.

“Unfortunately, her delay in providing this matching system leaves little time for election officials to act on questionable registrations,” Bennett said in a statement. “Secretary Brunner should immediately issue a new directive providing clear guidance on how the boards should handle the mismatched voter data.”

Between the secretary’s office and the county boards, Brunner said, efforts will be made to notify the voters of the discrepancy and urge them to update their information. Brunner will also follow that up with a directive to the counties urging them not to force people to vote provisionally. She said that could set up yet another Republican challenge, but that federal law does not require a person with mismatched information to vote provisionally, as opposed to getting a regular ballot.

Provisional ballot voting is often the most problematic and confusing form of voting. A Plain Dealer review found that 20 percent of the provisional ballots cast statewide for this year’s Republican and Democratic presidential primaries were rejected because some part of the complicated process was not properly followed and thus the person’s vote was not counted.