Bush Asks AG to Enter Ohio Voting Fray

Posted by Steven Rosenfeld at 12:14 PM on October 25, 2008.

The White House apparently has asked the Justice Department to intervene in an ongoing dispute in Ohio where Republicans have thus far been unable to challenge the voter registrations of 200,000 or more Ohioans, according to a report in ConsortiumNews.com

The report, by Jason Leopold, begins:

Bush forwarded to Attorney General Michael Mukasey a Republican request that he intervene in the battleground state of Ohio to force 200,000 new voters to either verify the information on their registration forms or cast provisional ballots, which are often thrown out after the voter leaves the polling place.

Similarly, two years ago when Bush feared Democratic victories in congressional races, the President “spoke with Attorney General [Alberto] Gonzales in October 2006 about their concerns over voter fraud,” according to a Justice Department Inspector General’s reported released earlier this month.

You can read the rest of the report here. To date, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat and former judge, has prevailed in numerous lawsuits on this issue -- including an appeal by the Ohio Republican Party that was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. You can expect more developments in this story next week.

Tagged as: bush administration, justice department, voter suppression, voter intimidation, ohio voter registrations