Ohio Supreme Court Dismisses GOP's Voter Registration Challenge

Posted by Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet at 10:30 PM on October 21, 2008.

The GOP's efforts to call into question votes by tens of thousands of Ohioans has failed before the all-Republican Ohio Supreme Court.

Here is what the Akron Beacon Journal reported in one of the more detailed newspaper accounts.

COLUMBUS: The Ohio Supreme Court today dismissed a lawsuit against the state's chief elections official over the handling of voter registration verifications after Republicans asked that it be tossed.

The move ends a court battle that had the potential to affect the ability of roughly 200,000 newly registered voters to cast a ballot in a crucial swing state. It had become a flash point for partisan accusations, with Democrats and voting rights groups accusing Republicans of trying to disenfranchise voters whose driver's license and Social Security numbers didn't match other government databases.

Republicans claimed Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, was trying to cover up fraud.

Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett said he asked that GOP fundraiser David Myhal, who filed the suit, withdraw his claims so that the parties can work toward a solution outside of court.

''We didn't file this lawsuit, but I've asked that it be withdrawn in the interest of negotiating a solution out of court,'' Bennett said in a statement. ''The legal wrangling on this issue has gone on long enough.''

The GOP presented the same argument to the U.S. Supreme Court that Myhal was making before the Ohio Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the GOP last week because it said the party didn't have standing to bring the claim.

The basis for this and other GOP lawsuits is that Ohio is among a handful of states where there have been high "no match" rates when information on voter registrations forms is not the same as that person's Social Security or driver's license records. Republicans have contended that gap -- often the result of typos and data-entry errors -- should be enough to set those voters' ballots aside until the discrepancies can be verified.

However, Brunner has said those database matches should not be the only factors determining the validity of voter registrations, particularly because the Social Security database has a known error rate just under 30 percent when used for this purpose.

Here is how a Columbus Dispatch article put it, summarizing the suit and noting that congressional Republicans are now pressuring the Justice Department to step in on their behalf:

Meanwhile, one legal challenge ended yesterday and another might be brewing on what should be done when personal information from newly registered voters doesn't match motor-vehicle or Social Security records.

David Myhal of New Albany sued Brunner in the Ohio Supreme Court last week seeking an order that Brunner direct election boards not to process absentee ballots unless they first check mismatches for voter eligibility.

Myhal voluntarily withdrew the case yesterday, saying he didn't want to be the focus. Bennett said he asked Myhal to withdraw it to pursue a settlement.

Boehner asked the Justice Department on Monday to force Brunner to comply with federal law and check the mismatched records. Brunner argues the law only requires doing the match -- and that a mismatch alone can't be used to disqualify a vote.

She also argues that the state's bipartisan election system works well to weed out voting fraud. Republicans say any available fraud-detection tool should be used.

Election law pundits say it is very unlikely the Justice Department would get involved, so close to Election Day. If they did, the protests would be deafening. That is not only because it would be seen as an overt partisan act, but also because the Department has not acted on behalf of other 2008 voters where civil rights groups have documented other actions that violate federal voting rights law.

At least one Republican prosecutor in southern Ohio has launched an investigation into new voters that violates the voter intimidation prohibitions of federal law. Also election officials in Virginia and Pennsylvania also have unevenly allocated voting machines and poll workers according to the precinct's racial make-up, another violation of federal voting rights law. On both those issues, the Justice Department has been silent.

The Obama campaign has also criticized the Department after top FBI officials confirmed a report that it was investigating ACORN for voter registration fraud, which violated internal policies about not disclosing investigations that could affect elections. The campaign asked the Attorney General to add that breach to a special prosecutor's investigation into the firing of U.S. Attorneys who did not pursue politically motivated voter fraud investigations.

Tagged as: voter registrations, ohio supreme court, ohio republican party, voter suppresion