Democrats sue to block GOP voter registration challenges

ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

Associated Press    27 October 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Turning to the federal courts again, Ohio Democrats have sued to block Republican challenges to 35,000 voter registrations.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati seeks an order halting hearings that county boards of elections have scheduled to determine whether challenged voters live where they are registered and should remain on the rolls.

A preliminary hearing was scheduled Wednesday before Judge Susan Dlott. She was appointed by President Clinton in 1995.

Election boards in at least 62 of 88 Ohio counties have scheduled hearings on the GOP challenges.

Republicans say mail to challenged voters was returned, indicating possible fraud. Democrats say the GOP is targeting new voters registered by political groups supporting Sen. John Kerry.

On Tuesday, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell ordered elections boards to let voters whose registrations are successfully challenged to still cast provisional ballots on Election Day.

Provisional ballots are reserved for registered voters whose names don't show up on their precinct list, or who have moved but haven't d their registration. Those ballots aren't counted until at least 10 days after the election.

If vote totals for presidential candidates are so close that provisional ballots are needed to determine a winner, the race could take more than two weeks to call. Polls show that the state's race between President Bush and Kerry is too close to call.

No Republican has ever won the White House without taking Ohio. Only two Democrats have in more than 100 years.

Tuesday's lawsuit says there's no evidence that the unreturned mail represents ineligible voters. Instead, the mail likely represents people who moved but are still eligible to cast ballots under state and federal law.

"Federal law expressly prohibits States from stripping citizens of their fundamental right to vote based solely on a returned piece of mail sent by a private party," the lawsuit said.

Democrats sued in federal court earlier this month in an unsuccessful attempt to allow voters to cast ballots in any precinct in the county where they live, not just in their precinct. A district judge agreed but a federal appeals court rejected the request.

With the hearings imminent, advocates for the poor and homeless want county elections boards to do all they can to ensure people's access to the ballot.

"The reality is everybody is a factor, everybody's vote is important this year," Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, said Tuesday. "No matter what side you're on, who you're going to vote for, everybody's vote is important."

Since challenging the registrations, the GOP has withdrawn 7,500 names in Fairfield, Hamilton, Montgomery and Wood counties, citing mistakes in its own computer system.

But lengthy hearings are still expected to take place in some counties as voters being challenged are asked to prove they live at the address where they're registered.

Blackwell's order directs elections boards to hold hearings on any pending challenges to voter registrations and rule immediately on the challenges.

If the board rules against a voter, elections officials should flag the person's name as a candidate for possible removal from registration lists, Blackwell said. If those people try to vote on Election Day, they'll be allowed to cast provisional ballots as long as they go to the precinct where they currently live.

A Blackwell spokesman called the order a "voter protection mechanism."

"No voter will be permanently removed from Ohio's voting rolls as a result of lack of attendance at the hearing," said spokesman Carlo LoParo.

Democrats immediately criticized Blackwell's ruling, saying it would allow boards to reject the registrations of anyone who can't attend a hearing, such as a soldier on active duty.

"A provisional ballot, while better than no ballot, is not as good as casting a regular ballot," said Myron Marlin, a Democratic Party spokesman. "It will not be counted that night and there's no guarantee they would be counted afterward."

Some counties have voted to reject all GOP challenges, as the Butler County elections board did with a 4-0 decision Monday. The board decided it had already identified the 255 voters named in the challenges and said errors could account for some of the mail being returned.

George Forbes, president of the NAACP in Cleveland, accused the Republican Party of racism for only challenging voters in predominantly black voting precincts in Cuyahoga County.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, an advocacy group for the poor, says an analysis of Cuyahoga County challenges found about 45 percent in communities where more than 50 percent of the population is black. Twenty-seven percent of the county's 1.4 million people are black, according to the U.S. Census.