Ohio Violates Federal Election Law

Did Cuyahoga County(OH) Violate Federal Election Law?

www.otterblog.com

Cuyahoga County, Ohio may have violated federal elections law by not providing Spanish-language ballots, according to a document on the U.S. Department of Justice's website -- available here .

The document states "a single political subdivision" that has "more than 10,000 or over 5 percent of the total voting age citizens" that "do not speak English very well" has to provide a ballot in the appropriate language to assist such a population.

Ohio.com reports that there were several problems for Spanish-speaking voters in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, -- mainly they weren’t provided Spanish-language ballots. The story also states that, "In Ohio, no counties qualify. Cuyahoga County has a total Hispanic population of 3.6 percent, according to 2003 census estimates."

However, the U.S. Census Bureau lists the population for the county to be over 1.3 million in 2003. Though the population has dropped by about 1 percent since 2000, it would still be close to 1.3 million at the time before the elections. Basic math tells us that the Spanish-speaking population in the county should be well over 40,000. The federal law applies only to the voting age population, but in order to disqualify Cuyahoga, over 75 percent of the Spanish-speaking population would have to be under 18 years of age.

Though this fact would certainly not throw the outcome of the election into doubt, it's yet another disheartening fact of voting problems on what appears to be a growing list.

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you, to discover that Ohio's Blackwell would do such a thing!