November 01, 2004
Judge bars challengers at Ohio polls
CINCINNATI, Ohio (CNN) -- A federal judge Monday barred political party challengers from questioning Ohio voters' registrations at the polls on Election Day.
The state Republican Party immediately said it would challenge the judge's ruling in hopes of having the order overturned in time for Tuesday's election in Ohio, an important battleground state that could throw the presidential contest either way. (Showdown state Ohio, Electoral College explainer)
Polls show President Bush and his Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry virtually tied. Ohio is among six battleground states showing voters almost evenly split in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Sunday (CNN.com Poll Tracker, opinion poll figures)
The Republican Party has said it wants its challengers at polls to prevent voter fraud, as allowed by state law.
Following a rare Sunday night hearing on the issue, U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott said that allowing inexperienced challengers to question voters' registrations at the polls would disrupt the election process.
According to the judge's ruling, Republicans in Ohio filed "for hundreds of challengers to be physically present in the polling places in order to challenge voters' eligibility."
In her ruling, Dlott said that there are sufficient safeguards against voter fraud in place with precinct election judges appointed by county election boards and that "disruption of this system by over 1,100 lawyers who have no experience in the process" would impede voting.
Mark Weaver, attorney for the state Republican Party, said an appeal of Dlott's ruling would be filed Monday morning.
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Posted by State at 04:04 PM | Comments (1)
October 20, 2004
Punch Cards for Ohio
Despite the questions that have dogged the voting system since Florida 2000, the great majority of Ohio's voters will use punch cards in Tuesday's primary election.
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Early plans to do away with punch cards in time for the primary were stymied by concerns about their potential replacements, direct-recording electronic (DRE) computerized voting systems. Questions about the machines' security led both Democratic and Republican state legislators to try to block changes to the state's voting systems. While Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell continues to advocate the use of computerized voting systems, the legislature is considering a bill that would require voter- verified paper audit trails with paperless electronic voting systems.
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Changes to elections have been made nationwide in the wake of the passage of the Help America Vote Act. The bill's central component, a $3.86 billion authorization to states to pay for new voting machines, voter registration databases and other election needs, is accompanied by federal election mandates.
That includes: provisional voting ballots for voters who believe they are registered but whose names are not on registration rolls; voter identification requirements for first- time voters who register by mail and do not include verification with their registration applications; and new machine standards and/or voter education programs to reduce spoiled or uncountable ballots.
"For many in Ohio, this could be the last time they vote on punch cards, though I imagine some might be surprised they are still doing so considering all of the attention that has been given to the problems found with that system," said Dan Seligson, editor of electionline.org and co-author of the report. "
"Ohio was already sued once because of its use of punch card machines in the 2000 election," added Tova Wang, senior program officer and democracy fellow at The Century Foundation and co- author of the report. "Moreover, some jurisdictions in Ohio are using punch cards while others are using more accurate technology. Will that lead to the kind of lawsuit filed in California during the 2003 recall election, alleging a violation of the Equal Protection Clause?"
Posted by State at 02:23 PM | Comments (1)
Candidate Tracker + Ad Spending
Candidate whereabouts:
BUSH/CHENEY
13 Bush visits since March 3
Oct. 19 - BUSH: Town hall, Carroll; Rally, Xenia; Roundtable, Cincinnati
Oct. 11 - CHENEY: Rally, Batavia
Oct. 5 - CHENEY: Debate, Cleveland
KERRY/EDWARDS
19 Kerry visits since March 3
Oct. 19 - KERRY: Rally, Dayton
Oct. 16-17 - KERRY: Town hall, Xenia; Rally, Wakefield; Church, Columbus
Oct. 15 - EDWARDS: Rally, Mentor
Candidate Ad Campaign Spending:
BUSH/CHENEY
$2,561,771
October 11-17
KERRY/EDWARDS
$2,509,034
October 11-17
Posted by State at 02:09 PM | Comments (1)
October 14, 2004
Judge Rules for Democrats in Dispute Over Ohio Voting
By JAMES DAO and KATE ZERNIKE
Published: October 15, 2004
OLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 14 - A federal judge in Toledo ordered this state's Republican secretary of state on Thursday to count so-called provisional ballots filed in the wrong precincts, a victory for Democrats who contend such ballots are more likely to be cast by low-income and minority voters than others.
The ruling, which could prove crucial in a close election, came as partisan battles over voting rules and voter registration escalated in swing states across the nation.
In Oregon and Nevada, officials were looking into claims that a voter registration company owned by a Republican strategist had shredded Democratic forms or pressed voters to register Republican.
The decision Thursday, by Judge James G. Carr of United States District Court in Toledo, blocked a directive by J. Kenneth Blackwell, the secretary of state, that election workers not give provisional ballots to people who appear at the wrong precincts.
A 2002 law says that voters whose names do not appear on a precinct's rolls should be given provisional ballots, which require them to sign affidavits saying they are eligible to vote in that "jurisdiction." Their votes are set aside while election workers determine whether those people are eligible to vote.
Provisional ballots are meant to ensure that people are not disenfranchised because of administrative errors or because they moved.
Under Mr. Blackwell's directive, the word "jurisdiction" was interpreted to mean precinct, and he ordered that provisional ballots not be given to voters who turned up at the wrong precincts. He said polling workers should instead direct those people to the correct polling stations.
But the Ohio Democratic Party sued, saying that in Election Day confusion, voters might be unable to locate their correct precincts. They said lower-income people moved frequently and were more likely to go to the wrong precincts. They asserted that the word "jurisdiction" referred to counties, and that voters should get provisional ballots as long as they are in the right counties.
Judge Carr agreed. If the law on provisional voting, he wrote, "saves but a single vote, its purposes will have been accomplished, and its adoption justified."
A spokesman for the secretary of state said Judge Carr had misinterpreted the federal law and that Mr. Blackwell would appeal the ruling.
Similar lawsuits on provisional ballots have been filed in Michigan, Colorado and Florida. A Missouri judge has already ruled against the Democrats in a case filed there.
Meanwhile, the Oregon secretary of state's office said the state was conducting a criminal investigation into complaints that an Arizona company, Sproul & Associates, had pressured people to register as Republican. The company is owned by Nathan Sproul, the former director of the Arizona Republican Party.
Several libraries across Oregon also complained that Mr. Sproul had asked them in letters to set up voter registration drives on their premises under the name America Votes, which he described as a nonpartisan effort. That name is already claimed by another nonpartisan drive.
Mr. Sproul said in an interview that his company sought to register Republicans, but that his employees were instructed to submit forms from anyone who asked to be registered, and that his company had submitted registrations from Democrats and independents in other states. He said that the library letter was a misunderstanding, that he did not realize the name America Votes was already claimed and that he intended the effort to be nonpartisan.
In Nevada, the state Democratic Party filed a lawsuit seeking to extend the deadline for registration for those who believed their forms had been destroyed, citing news reports that Sproul employees had shredded Democratic registration forms and had been told to register only Republicans. The secretary of state's office said it would review the accusation, which the company said came from a disgruntled former employee.
"There are a couple of isolated allegations that we're taking very seriously and looking at," Mr. Sproul said, "but they're by far the minority of incidents."
James Dao reported from Columbus, Ohio, for this article, and Kate Zernike from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/15/politics/campaign/15vote.html
Posted by State at 11:56 PM | Comments (1)