League president: Turnout, confusion led to invalidation rate

JOHN McCARTHY

Associated Press   22 February 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The heavy turnout in the Nov. 2 election and poll-worker confusion contributed to the invalidation of ballots cast by many voters whose names didn't appear on registration logs kept at polling places, the president of the League of Women Voters said Tuesday.

In Ohio, 21 percent of the provisional ballots cast were found to be invalid, compared with 13 percent in the 2000 presidential election. Nationwide, 32 percent of provisional ballots cast in last year's election were thrown out. Most states were using them for the first time.

Last year, 5.7 million Ohioans voted, compared with 4.8 million in the 2000 election. Ohio was pivotal in the 2004 election. President Bush won the state by 118,000 votes, giving him the 270 electoral votes needed for re-election.

County boards of elections and poll workers had to wait until Oct. 23 - nine days before the election - for a federal court to rule on a challenge to Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's directive that only voters showing up at the correct precinct be given provisional ballots if their names didn't appear on the books. Democrats claimed the order by Blackwell, a Republican, was too restrictive and could unfairly limit Democratic votes. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Blackwell's favor.

"We had so many new registrants and the elections officials were overwhelmed in many cases trying to keep up with all those registrations," said Kay Maxwell, the league's president. "We knew we were going to have the potential for a lot more people not being on the registration list who technically should have been and therefore need to cast provisional ballots."

Maxwell was among the witnesses scheduled to testify Wednesday before the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, created by Congress after the 2000 election. The commission planned its first hearing since the 2004 election to study the impact of provisional voting.

Also scheduled to appear were Blackwell and Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, also a Republican. U.S. Rep. Robert Ney, an Ohio Republican, scolded the two for not appearing before his House Administration Committee this month at the first congressional review of the 2004 election. Both cited previously scheduled events for their absence. Hood said she had never agreed to appear before the committee and had scheduled the other event seven months in advance.

"I was very clear that I was not available that day," Hood said. "I was very disappointed with his (Ney's ) comments."

Ohio was not alone in having crowded polling places or confused poll workers, Maxwell said. Nationwide turnout was 61 percent, the highest since 1968.

"We got up to two weeks before the election, a week before the election, and lack of clarity in many states in terms of what the standards were going to be for provisional ballots and therefore no time to train poll workers," Maxwell said. "Then you end up with them not giving out incorrect information - not deliberately - but we need to be able to educate all concerned on how things are supposed to work."

Ohio was fifth in validation rates among states reporting provisional voting to the commission. Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said that's due in part to a longer history of counting such ballots than most states. Ohio's rules on provisional ballots have not changed since 1994, he said.

"Secretary Blackwell was quite comfortable with the provisional ballot," LoParo said. "The benefit that Ohio had was that we had pretty solid ground rules for counting provisional ballots."

Some Democrats have suggested that Congress should make the same election rules apply in all states. Maxwell said it is too soon since the commission's formation to mandate changes.

"The Election Assistance Commission and election officials and those who have been working with this are probably the better ones, at this point at least, to be looking at what standards to set and how to move forward," Maxwell said.

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