Federal court rules OH must check voter registration

[Bach]

http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/20..._rules_oh.html

COLUMBUS -- A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered Ohio's top elections official to set up a system by Friday to verify the eligibility of voters registered since Jan. 1 and make the information available to the state's 88 county election boards.

The full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld a lower court ruling that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must use other government records to check thousands of new voters for registration fraud.

A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit had disagreed last week, but the full court's ruling overturns that decision.

Ohio Republicans had sued Brunner, a Democrat. Her spokesman had no immediate comment Tuesday.

About 666,000 Ohioans have registered to vote since January, with many doing so before the contested Democratic primary election last March between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Since then, Ohio Republicans have filed a series of challenges to the registrations and Brunner's administration of election rules. They have helped voters file lawsuits against local boards of election over registration rules, absentee ballot requests and a weeklong period that allowed registration and voting on the same day.
Brunner said in a statement that her office would work with the federal court, even though she believes that the order goes beyond the requirements of the Help America Vote Act.

She said it's "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."

Last week, a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit had sided with Brunner, but after hearing an appeal, the full panel sided with the GOP and U.S. District Judge George C. Smith in Columbus. Smith had ordered Brunner to develop a way to verify voter registration information and make it available to local election boards.

Brunner argued that it would take two to three days to create the necessary computer programs, and said nothing in the federal Help America Vote Act required her to do what the district court ordered.

Tuesday's order directs Brunner to verify new registrations by comparing that information with data from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration.

Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett accused Brunner of pursuing a partisan agenda and said, "Her delay in providing this matching system leaves little time for election officials to act on questionable registrations."

Bennett said Brunner was destroying the public's trust in Ohio's elections system.

"Her shameful actions to disenfranchise Republican absentee voters, block the transparency of early voting and refuse the proper verification of newly registered voters have rightfully damaged her credibility as a nonpartisan election administrator," he said.

[ZeroClub]

And so the fix begins ....

[Bach]

Originally Posted by ZeroClub

And so the fix begins ....

Yeah, heaven forbid they try and stop voter fraud.

[BrAinPaiNt]

I take it Ohio does not require a photo ID.

In that case I don't have a problem with them double checking absentee ballots because even without a photo ID I think they are required to provide some other kind of ID to check it with.

I guess the only problem would be setting it up and getting it done before the election.

However it would be nice to have a bipartisan group in charge of it to make sure no ballots are tossed out or "accidentally" lost even if they are legit.

[zrinkill]

Originally Posted by ZeroClub

And so the fix begins ....

Fixing voter fraud yes ....

[bbgun]