Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner 1 - Republicans 0 (updated)

Supreme Court Sides With Dems On Ohio Voting Case

By Zachary Roth - October 17, 2008, 11:59AM
In a ruling late this morning, the Supreme Court sided with Ohio's Democratic Secretary of State, who's in a dispute with the state GOP over voting.

Reports the AP:


The ruling could make it easier to vote for thousands of Ohioans whose voter registration information did not match up with other government records.

And the McCain campaign has already responded. On a conference call with reporters just now, campaign manager Rick Davis said: "If you look at what the ruling said, it said that the Republican party didn't have standing in order to bring the suit, it didn't make a decision on the merits of the case." Davis added: "I think that the Secretary of State ought to do her job."

Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

link

Court blocks Ohio voter match order

Friday, October 17th, 2008 12:11 pm | Lyle Denniston

The Supreme Court on Friday lifted a federal judge’s order that would have required Ohio election officials to set up new procedures to verify voter registration across the state in the weeks before the Nov. 4 balloting. The unsigned (”Per Curiam”) order is here. The order blunts an effort by the Ohio Republican Party to gain access to registration data that would enable it to challenge voters’ eligibility at polling places.

The state GOP had complained that the Ohio Secretary of State had violated her duty, under federal election procedures law, to share with county election boards the lists of voters whose names in a voter registration database do not match data in the state’s drivers’ license files. The GOP argued that the secretary of state had put a stop to required efforts to pass along the non-matching data so that local election officials could deal with it. Lack of matches could be the basis for challenges.

The Supreme Court said it was not expressing any opinion on whether the state official had violated any duty under federal law. But, it said, it was not persuaded that the federal law gives a private party — like the state GOP — a right to go to court to enforce those provisions in the Help America Vote Act.

Under that act, voters whose eligibility is challenged at the polls may have to file proveisional ballots, which would be counted only if their right to vote had been verified. Because Democrats have succeeded widely in efforts to register voters, it was generally assumed that such challenges in this election cycle would fall more heavily on that party than on the GOP. Tens of thousands of registrations might have been put in issue.

more

Ohio Senator: Democrat Obama 'a socialist'

By DAN SEWELL Associated Press Writer

Published on Friday Oct 17, 2008

A Republican U.S. senator ramped up the criticism of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, calling the fellow senator a socialist.

Two-term Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, was quoted Friday by The Daily Sentinel newspaper, which said he made the comment to a reporter Thursday while visiting the Meigs County Republican Party in southeast Ohio.

"He is left of Teddy Kennedy," Voinovich said. "With all due respect, the man is a socialist."

A spokesman for Voinvoich, who has also served as Ohio governor and mayor of Cleveland, said Friday the senator stands by the description.

"He believes that Barack Obama is seriously considering a redistribution of wealth and he also has come to believe that Barack Obama has no appreciation of the 10th Amendment," spokesman Chris Paulitz said.

more