Blackwell ends paper chase
Some could be unable to vote because of flap over registration forms
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Catherine Candisky
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH 
 
Under fire from voting-rights advocates, Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell retreated yesterday from a directive that critics said would slow voter-registration efforts and even block some people from casting a ballot Nov. 2.

At issue is a reminder Blackwell issued this month to county boards of election that voter-registration forms must be printed on "white, uncoated paper of not less than 80-pound text weight," a heavy, cardlike stock.

While the Franklin County Board of Elections and others have continued accepting forms submitted on lighter-weight paper, some county elections officials said yesterday they have been disqualifying registrations because the paper was not thick enough.

Critics charged that the confusion and inconsistency threatened to prevent tens of thousands of would-be voters from participating in the general election and could trigger lawsuits challenging the results. They also blasted Blackwell for issuing the directive less than a month before Ohio’s voter registration deadline and at a time when elections officials are working around-the-clock to keep up with record-smashing registration efforts in a presidential battleground state.

"There could be chaos on election day, and at the very least there is going to be inconsistencies," said Scott Britton, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.

"We should be making it easier for people to register to vote, not harder."

Jocelyn Travis, Ohio coordinator for the Election Protection coalition and People for the American Way Foundation, said, "We can’t let a piece of paper stand between people and their right to register and vote."

The national coalition of more than 60 civil-rights organizations has been assisting voters and has trained 25,000 poll monitors to assist voters in black and Latino precincts in Ohio and 16 other states.

Last night, a spokesman for Blackwell denied that the GOP officeholder was trying to prevent people from voting and said county boards should accept voter registration forms on paper of any weight as long as they are otherwise valid.

"We’re not the paper police. We’re not going to go to county election boards and review voter registration forms," said Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo. "We want them to process the forms."

But LoParo disputed suggestions that Blackwell was reversing his Sept. 7 directive, which states that "any Ohio form not printed on this minimum paperweight is considered to be an application for a registration form. Your board should mail this appropriate form to the person listed on the application."

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Denny White said, "This is an antiquated rule and an unnecessary barrier to voter-registration efforts going on in Ohio."

The requirement, LoParo said, is meant to prevent lightweight registration forms from being shredded by postal equipment. Ohio election law requires that the forms be a permanent record, and the weight requirement was set about a decade ago when Gov. Bob Taft was secretary of state.

LoParo said Blackwell wants election officials to process the lightweight registration forms and send the applicants a form on heavier-stock paper to return for a permanent record.

That was news to election officials in two counties, who said they have not been processing forms on underweight papers, per Blackwell’s directive.

In Pickaway County, Elections Director Johnda Perkins said her office already has sent letters and new forms to dozens of voters who registered on lightweight paper, asking them to return the heavier-weight forms.

Voters whose forms were disqualified have quickly responded by re-registering, she said.

In Madison County, Elections Director Gloria Herrel said her office has been sending a letter with an appropriate-weight registration card to would-be voters as their lightweight forms arrive. She could not estimate the number involved.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said, "We’ve received tens of thousands of forms on paper less than 80-pound weight and we’re accepting them.

"Frankly, in a year like this, with this kind of volume, we don’t have time to send them a new form."

In Delaware County, elections officials have been taping any lightweight forms they receive to paper of the correct weight.

"We don’t want any disenfranchised people out there," Elections Director Janet Brenneman said. "They sent in the cards in good faith."

The paper-weight debate wasn’t the only Blackwell directive coming under fire.

Ohio Democrats filed a federal lawsuit this week challenging state guidelines that would deny provisional ballots for people who show up at the wrong polling place.

Blackwell directed election officials to issue provisional ballots only to voters who are in the correct polling location. Democrats say federal law gives voters the right to obtain a provisional ballot and have it counted if they mistakenly go to the wrong precinct.

The controversy comes during the final push to sign up new voters before Monday’s deadline as well as the start of absentee voting yesterday.

Already, 25,000 absentee ballots are on their way out the door in Franklin County, compared with 6,500 the first day in 2000.

County elections workers are staffing the office 24 hours a day, six days a week, to keep up with registration forms. The 90,000 new voters now make up more than 10 percent of the electorate in a county that Democrat Al Gore won by only 5,000 votes in 2000.

The voter-registration deadline is Monday.

"In an election year like this where clearly the race for president is going to be close and in a county where things have tended to be closer and closer, adding 90,000 to the rolls changes the dynamic in all kinds of races," Damschroder said.

The expectation of a close election also is causing enormous scrutiny of seemingly insignificant rules such as paper weight, said Doug Chapin, director of electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearinghouse for election news created in the wake of the 2000 presidential race.

"That we’re having discussion about 20-pound paper and 80-pound card stock may seem absurd, but anything that could potentially affect a thousand voters is something that people need to pay attention to," he said. "It’s front-page news."