AMY MERRICK, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The Ohio Republican Party spearheaded a lawsuit Friday over an initiative from the office of Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner that would allow some early voters to register and vote on the same day.
The suit once again ramps up the battle over voting procedures in a critical swing state with 20 electoral votes. But the parties’ roles are reversed from 2004: This time, a Democrat is setting the rules, and the state Republican Party is charging that the rules favor Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate.
Conflicts over voter registration and voting procedures are heating up across the U.S. as the Nov. 4 election approaches. In Wisconsin, the Republican attorney general sued a state board this week over a process of comparing voter names with driver’s-license records. In Michigan, Republicans announced a plan to challenge voters based on foreclosure lists. The Florida Department of State made a last-minute announcement this week that it will begin enforcing a controversial law, which requires matching an identifying number on voter-registration forms with government databases that critics say are prone to mistakes.
In Ohio, a recently enacted state law allows residents, for the first time in a general presidential election, to vote early by absentee ballot without providing a justification. Advocates for the homeless and other groups say they will direct new voters to take advantage of the overlap between early voting, which begins Sept. 30, and voter registration, which ends Oct. 6. During that window, citizens can register and vote simultaneously. The outreach efforts are expected to benefit Democrats.
The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, a Cleveland-based umbrella group for service providers, housing activists and others, is making plans to drive about 2,000 shelter residents to polling places during the overlap period. “This is a huge opportunity to prove to elected officials that very low-income people do vote,” says Brian Davis, executive director of the group.
Republican officials are furious, charging that the one-stop process will encourage voter fraud. They argue that a state law requires Ohio residents to register at least 30 days before voting, so same-day registration and voting should be banned.
Ms. Brunner’s position is that early ballots do not constitute votes until they are tabulated on Nov. 4, said Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for her office. Responding to the charge that Ms. Brunner favors Democrats, he said, “Secretary of State Brunner has simply tried to provide clear, consistent ,statewide standards for election boards in this state on a whole host of issues.”
Ohio’s boards of election are hoping that many people will vote before Nov. 4, easing the strain on an Election Day expected to produce a huge turnout. Ohio had a strong 46% turnout in the March primary, with 15% of the vote coming from absentee ballots.
Another wrinkle this year is the thousands of foreclosures hitting Ohio each month, which could mean many voters no longer live at their registered addresses. Nonprofit groups conducting voter-registration drives are concerned that these people will be challenged at the polls. In Michigan, another state with many foreclosures, the state Republican Party already has said it will arm election challengers with foreclosure lists to scrutinize voters’ eligibility.
Ohio residents must present identification to vote, but they can use utility bills, bank statements, pay stubs or other documents in place of a driver’s license or ID card. Early voters may provide the last four digits of their social-security numbers in lieu of such documents.
In 2004, Ohio was in an uproar over a tactic known as “caging,” in which a political party calls for voters to be stricken from the rolls because mail sent to them was returned as “undeliverable.” In the last presidential election, the state Republican Party used returned mail to challenge the registrations of 35,000 new voters, most of whom lived in urban, heavily Democratic areas.
Not many voters were successfully removed, because “there was so much litigation and public backlash,” says Teresa James, a lawyer in Ohio for Project Vote, a nonprofit voter-registration group. But she says some voters likely were intimidated by the challenges and stayed home.
Last week, Ms. Brunner told election boards that Republicans passed a law concerning caging that she considers unconstitutional, and that a single returned election notice cannot be used as the sole basis to cancel a voter’s residency. She also said every challenged voter must be notified and given a chance to attend a hearing before Election Day.
Kevin DeWine, deputy chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said “nothing is off the table” in terms of election tactics, but he declined to be more specific.
Project Vote, which is running voter-registration drives with the nationwide community-organizing group Acorn, says it has responded to concerns about fraudulent voter registrations. Recruits are paid by the hour, rather than by the name, to sign up new voters. Project Vote has set up call centers to attempt to contact people listed on all registration cards to verify their information. Canvassers found to falsify registrations are fired and reported to state boards of elections.
Allegations of voter fraud are potent charges that have been part of elections for more than a century. Project Vote, which is running voter-registration drives with the community organization Acorn, says it has responded to the concerns. Recruits are paid by the hour, rather than by the name, to sign up new voters. Project Vote has set up call centers to attempt to contact people listed on all registration cards to verify their information. Canvassers found to falsify registrations are fired and reported to state boards of elections.
While the Bush administration has made prosecuting voter fraud a priority, the government has provided little evidence that voter-registration fraud is widespread, or that it has a significant impact on elections. The U.S. Department of Justice said in March that it has convicted 102 people of voter fraud of various types since October 2002.
In 2004, a margin of 118,601 votes in Ohio gave President Bush the electoral votes he needed to reclaim the White House. But the many election problems in that state still rankle Democrats.
After the election, the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee compiled a list of irregularities and grievances, including 10-hour lines in some urban areas; thousands of Republican challengers concentrated around polling places in minority and Democratic areas; and fake voter bulletins that told Republicans to vote on Tuesday and Democrats to vote on Wednesday.
Some Democrats alleged that J. Kenneth Blackwell, then the secretary of state and the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio, deliberately disenfranchised Democratic voters. He denied that partisanship affected his decisions.