Election boards overwhelmed
New registrations straining resources
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Mark Naymik and Julie Carr Smyth
Cleveland Plain Dealer Reporters

For the armies of canvassers registering Ohio voters, citizen interest this election year is a dream come true.

But to election boards across the state, inundated with tens of thousands of new registration cards, it's turning into a nightmare.
So crucial is the Buckeye State in this year's presidential campaign that groups from the Republican Party in tiny Brown County to the national mobilization effort America Coming Together are stepping over each other to locate every unregistered Ohioan.

"Ohio's the subject of such a national focus that we're almost drowning each other," said Josh Gildrie, state coordinator for the New Voters Project. "It's absolutely amazing what's going on."

The result is a flood of new registrations and address changes in the biggest counties, nearly double the number submitted in 2000 that voter advocates worry will lead to confusion and lost votes on Election Day. The scramble is expected to intensify this week, as the Oct. 4 registration deadline nears.

"We think this will be the sleeper issue in this election," says Kay Maxwell, national president of the League of Women Voters. "Plenty of people can fall through the cracks."

Any Election Day confusion could be most worrisome for Democrats: The New York Times reports today that the bulk of new registrations in Ohio have been in heavily Democratic areas.

Election boards across the state have hired extra staff members, extended working hours, or both. Some boards are processing cards 24 hours a day.

"It's like Florida 2000, only before the election," said Dan Tokaji, an election-law specialist and assistant law professor at Ohio State University.

The big counties seem to have it worst.

At Cuyahoga County's elections board, Ohio's largest, about 20,000 cards sat in small bins last week, waiting to be checked and entered into computers. Director Michael Vu said the board will spend about $175,000 on extra workers to process the cards. He expected to eliminate the backlog over the weekend.

John Williams, Hamilton County's elections director, said the Cincinnati area's backlog was still about 5,000 last week - down from 14,000.

"This is an election unlike anything 30-year pros have seen," he said.

Judy Gallo, head of the Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition, said backlogs cut into the time that boards have to correct mistakes made by voters, canvassers or election employees.

Confusion about where to vote on Election Day could force more people to use the controversial "provisional ballots" - the special ballots given to voters who go to the wrong polling places.

That is worrisome to voting-rights advocates because an Ohio law, which continues to be challenged, could result in many provisional ballots being tossed. Provisional ballots will be issued only to voters who, after giving their address, appear to be in the correct precinct but don't show up in registration rolls.

Voting-rights groups had hoped that Ohio would be more liberal about accepting ballots from voters in the wrong precincts. Poor communication with new voters, they say, will jeopardize the votes of thousands of Ohioans who may not know what precinct they are in.

If errors on registration forms aren't fixed by Oct. 4, some new registrants may find themselves confused - or, worse yet, ineligible to vote - because of the processing delays, said Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Dan Trevas.

"How do you vote if you're a first-time voter and you've never been told where your polling place is?" Trevas asked. "Do you just go around looking for American flags stuck in the ground?"

Normally, elections boards quickly alert new voters of mistakes or missing information by mail, giving them a chance to return a corrected card. This year, boards have flagged hundreds of cards with errors that voters don't yet know about.

Some cards confirming a person's registration and directing them to a new polling place have been delayed by the backlog.

"Our biggest concern is that so many people haven't received a confirmation card, leaving them wondering if their registration is valid," Gallo said.

Dennis Lieberman, the Democratic Party chairman in Montgomery County, said surveys show that most of the new voters appear to be Democrats. Volunteers have called a significant number of the 25,000 newly registered voters in Montgomery County, and three-quarters have identified themselves as Democrats.

"On newly registered voters, if we can get them to the polls, it is a big asset for Democrats," he said.

The New York Times found that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations from January through July rose 250 percent from the same period in 2000. In comparison, the Times reports today, registrations increased just 25 percent in Republican areas.

The Times surveyed 60 ZIP codes mostly in the core of big cities like Cleveland, Dayton, Columbus and Youngstown, where people voted two to one or better against President Bush four years ago. New registrations in those ZIP codes have tripled since 2000, to 63,000 from 17,000.

Democrats in the state legislature have blamed Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a Republican, for contributing to the backlog of more recent registrations. They say he has issued too many last-minute orders, some of which appear to conflict with each other, to county boards and has not adequately informed citizens how to properly register.

Believing that more new voters will be Democrats than Republicans, State Sen. Teresa Fedor, a Toledo Democrat, accused Blackwell of politicking.

"Blackwell's provisional voting directive is off the mark and amounts to nothing more than cooking the vote," she told reporters last week.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell, said the secretary's directives have sought to clarify concerns raised by the presidential campaigns, political parties and advocacy groups.

"If you look at the directives, we've liberalized standards," he said. "We're steering toward voter enfranchisement and the even-handed administration of Ohio election law."

Some local election officials say voter groups bear responsibility for the registration backlog because they have turned in too many cards that are duplicates or incomplete, forcing the boards to track down the voters.

In Cuyahoga County, for instance, Project Vote and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, worked together to submit the most cards. But they also produced the highest percentage - about 15 percent - of incomplete cards.

Candy Roberts, ACORN's voter registration coordinator, said the organization had problems at first but tightened its procedures to reduce errors and possible fraud.

"We can't tell when we meet someone on the street if they're not being honest with us," she said.

Republicans have been critical of Project Vote, ACORN and other groups that pay canvassers to register voters, many in Democratic-leaning areas.

Jason Mauk, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, said sloppy work by the groups has overloaded election boards. He also said the barrage of cards has opened the door to fraud.

"Our concern is that cases of fraud will slip through," he said. "This could raise challenges to ballots and wreak havoc on Election Day."

Meridith Imwalle, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Secretaries of State, said voter registrations are at unprecedented levels around the nation. But despite the hassles, elections officials strive to increase participation, she said.

"As long as people are getting in by the deadline, they'll be processed and I think everything will run smoothly," she said.