Out of country, off beaten path: reason for voting challenges vary

ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

Associated Press    27 October 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio - One voter receives letters at a post office because his mailbox has been hit so many times by delivery trucks. Another is an Army sergeant in Iraq. Yet another has lived at the same address for five years, voting in every election.

Hundreds are homeless who listed shelters as their permanent address after advocates for the poor persuaded them to register.

All found themselves on the receiving end of 11th-hour challenges by the Ohio Republican Party to their registration status, challenges now before a federal judge and the subject of dozens of hearings around the state just days before Tuesday's election.

"My vote has to be counted," said Mary Sullivan, who spent two months at a homeless shelter in Columbus this past summer, when she registered to vote. "Just because you're homeless doesn't mean you're stupid."

People who do not defend their challenges could be given provisional ballots. If vote totals for presidential candidates are so close that those ballots are needed to determine a winner, the race could take more than two weeks to call.

No Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio, and polls show the race is too close to call.

Republicans challenged 35,000 voter registrations after mail came back undelivered, saying they could be fradulent registrations produced by soft money groups supporting John Kerry. Democrats say the GOP is trying to keep poor and minorities, who move more often, from voting.

Roy Bottiggi was confused when he got a call about a challenge to his registration. The Willoughby resident in northeast Ohio has been a registered voter for 13 years, has lived in the same house for five years and voted in every election, general and primary, during that time.

Bottiggi, 31, a software tester, is also a registered Republican who plans to vote for President Bush.

"I was a little bothered by it," Bottiggi said Wednesday. "I never really had a problem until now."

The Republican party withdrew its challenge after the Lake County Board of Elections documented his registration.

In southwest Ohio, Republicans challenged the registration of Surjo Panerjee, a fact his brother found unusual. Panerjee, 40, is an Army sergeant who is now in Fallujah in Iraq.

Panerjee, also a veteran of the first Gulf War, uses his brother's house in Centerville as a permanent address even though he has lived around the world, said his brother, Dr. Partha Banerjee.

"He would laugh it off," Banerjee said. "He would say, 'I never get picked for anything nice - why can't they give me a car or something?'"

Republicans withdrew all 2,319 challenges in Montgomery County, including the one against Panerjee, after acknowledging several mistakes in its mailing.

In suburban Franklin County, the registration of Raven Shaffer was wrongly challenged because he gets mail at a post office box, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by Democrats to stop the challenges. The "family's mailbox has been repeatedly hit by delivery trucks," the lawsuit said.

In Franklin County, 291 homeless people are being challenged out of the 2,370 total challenges, according to an analysis of the challenges by the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio. In Cuyahoga County, 757 people of the 17,717 total being challenged are homeless.

"We're very concerned that people that have chosen to participate in our democratic process, who took a big step in registering to vote and who were poised to go to the polls on Nov. 2, are going to be disenfranchised, and we may never get them back," said Bill Faith, COHHIO executive director.

Sullivan, 57, looked for work for a year after losing her job as a receptionist and prescription filler for a local drug maker in August 2003. She was evicted from her apartment after her money ran out this past June and spent two months at Friends of the Homeless, a shelter on Columbus' east side.

Sullivan got a job caring for a 77-year-old widow at her suburban Columbus home in August. She had no idea she'd been challenged; she also knew nothing of a scheduled hearing Thursday at the Franklin County elections board.

"I've been voting for presidents since I was old enough to vote," said Sullivan, a Kerry supporter. "Now they're taking away my constitutional right."