SEARCH
Supreme Court Halts Republican Move to Disenfranchise Ohio Voters |
|
The U.S. Supreme Court today vacated a temporary restraining order sought by Ohio Republicans that would have required Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to update the state’s voter registration database before Election Day.
The decision means thousands of voters who might support worker-friendly candidates will be allowed to vote without being challenged on Election Day. Had the politically motivated lawsuit, which included the restraining order, been allowed to proceed, some 200,000 eligible Ohio voters could have been forced to use provisional ballots.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker says today’s decision
is a clear victory for voters and for democracy. This effort by Republican operatives was about just one thing–suppressing record turnout among new and younger voters in Ohio. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is to be commended for standing strong for the rights of every citizen to vote.
The Ohio Republican Party filed suit against Brunner, claiming she should be required under federal law to match new voter registrations against certain state databases. After a federal circuit court ruled in the Republicans’ favor, Brunner appealed to the high court, saying simple errors such as data entry mistakes and unnecessary software codes could lead to erroneous mismatches and deny eligible voters the right to vote.
In fact, the databases the Republicans want to use are so full of errors that the now famous “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher and Ohio state House Speaker Jon Husted are both listed as technical “mismatches” and would have had to use provisional ballots on Election Day, Brunner says.
The suit was timed just as Ohioans began absentee voting in 2008. Numerous press reports have revealed Republican Party plans nationwide to thwart the impact of a record number of new voter registrations, mainly among students, young people, poor people and people of color, groups that usually vote for Democrats.
In a statement before the Supreme Court ruling, Brunner said:
I have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court because no eligible Ohio voter should be forced to use a provisional ballot, which is subject to partisan attacks and legal wrangling after Election Day. Ohioans who have followed the law and simply want to exercise their right to vote should not be penalized because of a database error.
The AFL-CIO, in conjunction with the Ohio AFL-CIO and SEIU, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, supporting Brunner’s position. The AFL-CIO argues in the brief that the Ohio Republican Party has no right to file the lawsuit under federal law. Only the U.S. Attorney General can bring such a suit, but the Republicans convinced a politically appointed judge (by Ronald Reagan) that they could proceed. Allowing the lawsuit to proceed, the brief says, would allow the Republican Party and the judge to micromanage the election and impinge on the authority of the state’s secretary of state to run elections.
In her appeal, Brunner pointed out that Ohio’s statewide voter registration database was created under the previous secretary of state, Republican Kenneth Blackwell, and has been used in its current form in every election since the 2006 general election, including the 2008 March primary.
6 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
You you crazy? Do you want our unions supporting a clearly fringe group like ACORN??
Just like our side would not like it, if a ACORN type group was supporting the Republicans, we should not even as unions support this garbage group.
MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD in November, because in many states there is no safeguard? Our voter system has become compromised because of the 13 to 30 million illegal aliens in our nation. Do you really think that our corrupted government is going to give you accurate numbers of illegal aliens. I blame both parties, the Liberal-Socialist judges that have allowed this to happen, because anybody, just ANYBODY can say they have citizenship status?
With ACORN violating our laws, and other ominous entities, how can we expect an honest vote in two weeks. Many states do not have the resources to check, who has a legal right to vote? What’s going to stop millions of illegal foreign nationals from uttering perjury, that can be located in any Post Office, Department of Motor Vehicles or even in a rural court house. As an Independent is it even worth voting, when our US constitution has become just a piece of paper by Liberal judges.
Read what Rep. Tom Tancredo (CO) Interview at YALE UNIVERSITY about the illegal immigrant occupation of our country: http://thepolitic.org/content/view/109/ IT WILL CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT THIS EVER INCREASING PLAGUE.
Some five million fraudulent home mortgages are in the hands of illegal aliens, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The middle class already overburdened with war appropriation funds, is still force to pay for the education, free health-care and Federal, state welfare handouts for illegal criminals and millions of illegal alien families. SIGN UP FOR THE SAVE ACT(H.R.4088) enforcement ‘ONLY’ law at http://www.numbersusa.com.
SIGN JUDICIAL WATCH, A LEGAL ORGANIZATIONS PETITION, TO RESCIND ALL ‘SANCTUARY CITIES & STATES. http://www.sanctuarybusters.org / source. http://www.numbersusa.com to Petition the SAVE ACT. For immigration facts not propaganda or lies,
We as union members are much to willing to believe Acorn is on the up and up.We need many more safegaurds on our voting system.Just because republicans are pushing the issue doesn’t mean it’s not happening.Acorn has been accused of this very thing many times in the past.I know some of you do not agree with my position on voter registration but I’m going to say it again if you can not prove you are a legal citizen of this country you should not be at the polls casting a ballot.We need to do whatever it takes to make sure only legal citizens have the right to vote.
This clearly points out that the Ohio Supreme Court is NOT going to allow voter tampering in this election; they learned the hard way, in 2004, when it became increasingly clear that the Republicans were trying to prevent certain populations from voting or preventing their votes from being counted (all this is documented and verified). This is very good news not only for the state of Ohio, but for the rest of the country. I sincerely hope this decision sets a precedent.
Some of you may not even know that McCain actually praised the efforts of Acorn, and acknowledged that the efforts of any organization to register voters is good for this country. (He spoke at an Acorn fundraiser making these statements.) Now, McCain is changing his story, because he’s afraid that YOUNG voters are not going to vote for him.
Well, McCain, you can’t have it both ways. You are attempting to control the elections by fabricating more lies and vicious attacks on an organization that has an excellent reputation for registering huge numbers of new, primarily first time voters. EVERY STATE in the nation says that “voter fraud is negligible, if not non existent, even those registered by Acorn.”
McCain-Palin, together with the Republican party, are trying once again to STEAL THE ELECTION. Hopefully, we are going to be smarter this time. If the election is close, and McCain loses, the Republican’s next strategy of attack will be to tie up the courts for months and months, looking for any way they can to reverse the decision, even if everything has been done fairly. It’s what they do. Bullies in the political arena, and extremely sore, vicious losers, when they lose.
McCain and Palin are doing everything in their power to clearly divide this country, by attacking Obama, attacking anything connected to endorsing Obama, attacking anyone who will not vote for them, spreading vicious lies and propaganda, while all the while claiming that they are putting this country first.
WHEN OUR FOUNDING FATHERS SET UP THE CONSTITUTION, THERE WAS NEVER ANY MENTION OF A PERSON HAVING TO VERIFY WHO THEY ARE TO VOTE. EVERY AMERICAN IN THIS COUNTRY HAS A RIGHT TO VOTE, and THIS IS AS TRUE TODAY AS IT EVER WAS! Acorn was obligated to go through the registrations and report any persons of suspect. This they did, and what they found were a FEW names of people that actually did not exist, or names that were suspicious, and these were caught. VOTER REGISTRATION DOES NOT EQUAL ACTUAL VOTES. Election boards go through all these names and weed out those that are improper. The Republicans are spinning yet another tail of conspiracy and intrigue to discredit ANY party that is NOT the Republican party.
Gald to see that our “union” readers are so up on keeping others down. that’s real worker solidarity.
Some facts, since those seem to be missing from most of your comments:
ACORN is required by LAW to submit ALL registration forms that they collect. Once pen goes to paper, they must accept whatever is written down on it. this makes sense. Would you want it to be legal for a group that collects registrations to decide on its own which ones they turn in and which ones they destroy? I think not. ACORN flags all suspicious registration forms when they are turned over to the election boards. Some election officers like to make political hay over the few hundred out of the tens to hundreds of thousands that are fraudulent.
ACORN workers are paid by the hour, not by the number of registrants, thus providing no economic incentive for workers to fake registrations.
A false, or inaccurate voter registration application is NOT VOTER FRAUD! That cannot occur until Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck show up at the polls and ACTUALLY VOTE. and guess what? Since all states require you to show either a valid registration card, or some other proof of address (like a utility bill with the registrants name on it!) before voting, its highly unlikely that Mickey or Donald ever actually cast a vote.
Several of the attorneys general that were fired were republicans (including here in NW Missouri) who were being pressured by Gonzalez to pursue these supposed ACORN voter registration violations. Problem was, there were no cases to be made. They abided by the law and lost their jobs.
There has not been one documented case of voter impersonation occurring in the US in the last 50 years or more. Just think about how hard it would be to fake a bunch of registrations, get the documents required to match all of the fake addresses, and then go to all the different polling places and vote. and at best, you could maybe get a few hundred extra votes. Hack a voting machine, on the other hand, and you’ve got access to thousands of votes with a fraction of the amount of work.
and do you REALLY think that someone that is here illegally will expose himself to something so official as voting? These people do all they can to avoid ANY contact with officials of government. Do you know ANYTHING about immigrant culture? Obviously not. All you seem to know is that about half of them are brown. Just keep sinking into your pile of hate.
facts not fear,We do not need people going door to door solicting voters,even if there is no fraud it is a poor way to register voters.I’ll say it again if you do not have enough interest in the system to go down to your courthouse or wherever local leaders designate and sign up you should not be voting.Also it doesn’t seem to bother illegals to stand on street corners in broad daylight and wait for a job,why do think they would be afraid to go try and cast a vote.Last time i checked there is no one at a polling place that could even remotely make an arrest or deport anyone.I also do not care about their skin color or nationality all I care about is that they are legal immigrants.There are plenty of people in this world doing their best to get here the right ways lets help them if your so interested in immigration or do you just want Mexicans to come.