Anything from current events, campaign finance reform, sports (especially baseball), corporate/political/legal ethics, pop culture, confessions of a recovering comic book addict, and probably some overly indulgent discourses about my 3-year old daughter. E-Mail: sardonicviews -at- sbcglobal.net
 
 
   
 
   
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Saturday, October 30, 2004
 

Ohio Election -- Pull Up a Chair and Watch the Carnage

Election Day in Ohio is starting to get that disaster movie feel. There have already been a lot of explosions but you are waiting for that final big boom to justify the ticket price. So you sit there watching with anticipation. Here's what we have so far.

The big story, of course, was the disagreement between Ohio Sec. of State Blackwell and AG Petro over the litigation concerning election day challengers. Blackwell wants to keep out all challengers until after the election and then go through litigation over the law. Petro says he cannot do that. So Petro is not representing the Sec. of State's office, but the State of Ohio in defending the validity of the law.

Both sides blame the other for the litigation mess. Rulings on the challenges in federal courts in Akron and Cinic are expected on Monday. Technically, the Cinci ruling could only apply to Hamilton County, since the claims are for civil rights violations. So naturally, a similar lawsuit has now been filed in Cuyahoga County. You can read the press release fromThe Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area here (PDF). Oh, but wait there's more. There is also related litigation in Newark, NJ. Regarding consent orders between the RNC and DNC from 1982 and 1987 to refrain from in-precinct challenges (consent orders are here, PDF). It doesn't seem pertinent since the Ohio Republican Party is not bound by the decree, nor was it a party to it; but you never know. If you are counting at home, that is 4 lawsuits against election day challenges brought from Wednesday to Saturday. Nothing like the last minute, even though the issue was known for well over 2 weeks.

Since no one knows whether the voting challenges will occur, here are the rules on voting challenges.
1. The challenger will have to state why your right to vote is being challenged. The four reasons they can challenge are that they believe you are either not 18 or older, not a U.S. citizen, not a Ohio resident for the past 30 days or not a resident of the county and precinct in which you are trying to vote.

2. One of the poll workers and you will move no less than 10 feet from the challenger.

3. You will be asked to take this oath: "Do you swear or affirm that you will fully and truly answer all of the following questions put to you, touching your place of residence and your qualifications as an elector at this election?"

3. You will be asked a series of questions about one of the four areas in which you are being challenged.

4. If you refuse to answer fully all questions or are unable to answer them fully, or your answers indicate you are too young, not a resident or a citizen, you will not be able to vote.

5. If you answer the questions to the satisfaction of the poll worker, you will be given a ballot and will be allowed to vote.

What if you want to appeal? The decisions of the poll workers are final.

What if the challenger appears to be attempting to cause delays or intimidate voters? The chief poll worker, the presiding judge, can expel them from the polling place.

Source: Oct. 20 memorandum, "Challenger and Witness Guidelines," Ohio Secretary of State's Office and the Ohio Association of Elections Officials.

Both sides are getting instructions. Here's a story about Dems getting training in Canton. I'm sure the poll workers appreciate the suggestion that the election challengers bring them coffee and donuts.

Predictions are that the turnout for voting could be around 5.8 million in Ohio. That would be a 73% turnout rate. Yow. No wonder early balloting has gotten popular. Ohio permits early balloting at the County Board of Elections via an absentee ballot. What? And miss going to poll and possibly seeing the big ka-boom?


Friday, October 29, 2004
 

Ohio Election -- Wha?

Oh, to live somewhere other than a swing state right now. Even the bourbon and spending most of the evening with the wife and daughter weren't enough to keep me away from one last peek on the computer. I should have resisted a little fiercer (or drunk a little more). The latest.

The following statement may be attributed to [Ohio] Attorney General Jim Petro:

"I share the Secretary of State's belief that the upcoming election be conducted in a manner as open and accessible as possible and that the result must be free from any fraud or misconduct. Over the last few days, some of the longstanding laws by which Ohio conducts elections have been challenged, including the law that allows citizens to act as challengers at the polls on Election Day. As Attorney General, I have a constitutional obligation to defend Ohio's laws when they are attacked.

"I express no view of whether it is right or wrong for any political party, candidate, or issue proponent or opponent to have challengers at the polls on Election Day. Certainly, no challenger should engage in conduct that is obviously intended to harass or discourage any lawfully registered voter from exercising his or her right to vote. However, until the law is finally declared to be unconstitutional, it is a valid law granting Ohio's citizens the right to be challengers if they have followed the proper procedure to do so.

"Neither the Secretary of State nor I can negotiate away the legal rights of Ohio's citizens. Thus, I cannot submit to the federal courts the Secretary's unlawful proposal to ban all challengers for all parties, candidates or issues on Election Day."

In other words, eff Blackwell, it's still on. Now the easy cynical point to make is that both Sec. of State Blackwell and Petro both have their eye on being Governor of Ohio in 2006. Both are Republicans. Blackwell may have made a move to position himself to the middle while Petro is looking to make the Ohio GOP happy. Who knows. What isn't a shock is the complete silence coming from Gov. Taft. While both the AG and SOS are elected positions in Ohio, they still fall under the executive branch for which The Governor is supposed to have some control and power. Right?

Just as it seems the Ohio GOP looks to make fools of themselves again, a group on the left in Ohio rides in to shift the attention by providing the partisan violence that couldn't wait until election day.

Republicans and members of a community activist group accused each other of assault Friday after activists tried to deliver a protest letter over challenges to voter registrations at party headquarters in Cuyahoga County.

Members of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, had similar demonstrations without incident in Columbus and Cincinnati on Friday. Each city had two to three dozen protesters asking the GOP to withdraw statewide challenges to the authenticity of new registrations.

Makes sense. Of the 3, Cuyahoga has the weakest Republican party.

Two female party volunteers told officers that they had locked the glass door, but when they unlocked it to let a worker in, one protester put his foot in the door and another forced his way inside and assaulted them. The ACORN member told officers the women assaulted him, Drummond said. No charges were filed.
Ominous as it sounds, assault does not necessarily mean actual physical harm or even intent to harm.

The two women completed filing their reports with police Friday night, and one has visible bruises on her upper arm and shoulder, Republican spokesman Jeff Flint said.

Charlene Sinclair, Washington national director for ACORN, said she was standing next to the man and saw the women punch and kick him.

"He was more emotionally injured than physically injured," Sinclair said.

"He was more emotionally injured?" Uh-huh. How? Because he got beaten by a girl? Through a locked door? Or did they actually try to force their way in?That would seem to go beyond merely protesting.

Ohio GOP looks like a mess. Fighting amongst elected officials. Dealing with lawsuits, and a liberal group gets involved in some physical altercation at a Republican headquarters. Brilliant.

 

Ohio Election -- Huh?

What just happened?
Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell today issued the following statement regarding challengers at Ohio's polling places.

"As Secretary of State, it is my responsibility to conduct Ohio's elections in a manner as open and accessible as possible, consistent with the absolute requirements of integrity and fairness. Ohio's bipartisan system of election administration has served us well over the years by conducting transparent and balanced elections. Unfortunately, some of our longstanding procedures have come under litigation in the last couple of days. Specifically, suits have been filed against the statutes that allow parties to place challengers in polling places. While I do not agree there is any discriminatory intent or result from these statutes, I do believe a full airing of the issues cannot be completed prior to Tuesday's election.

"Therefore, I have instructed the Attorney General to offer the following recommendation to the federal courts in Hamilton and Summit counties for resolution of these matters now: All challengers of all parties shall be excluded from polling places throughout the state.

"Following the election, I will institute litigation bringing together all parties to resolve the statutory and constitutional issues so they may be fully litigated and determined once and for all.

"This action will allow Ohio's dedicated, bipartisan election officials present in each polling place - Republicans and Democrats - to concentrate for the next four days on preparation for this important election without the distraction and uncertainties this litigation brings."

Wow. This will piss off the Ohio GOP in a big way. Wouldn't be suprised if they filed their own lawsuit over this. This might take a while to sink in completely. Suddenly the polling places got a lot less crowded. Will be interesting to see how the Democrats spin it. Will they be gracious and say that Blackwell was behaving as a reasoned, principled elected official? Or will they just claim that he was ass-covering because he was about to lose the cases? Gee, I just can't imagine which will happen.

In the Cinci case of election day challengers, the plaintiffs have filed an amended complaint (PDF). Haven't had a chance to look at it, and it may be moot.

US District Court Judge Dlott expanded the TRO from 6 counties to the entire state regarding pre-election challenges this afternoon. This halts anymore hearings in the state.

Things keep changing around here.
 

Ohio Elections -- Welcome to Hell (Continued)

Okay. Deep breath. The newest crap will be mixed in where appropriate, but first a bit of a recap. As I said yesterday, the Summit County Board of Elections tossed all the challenges a shortly after they started the hearings.

After hearing some of the protests, the board voted unanimously to dismiss all 976 challenges.

The move, ironically, came from Republican board member Joseph Hutchinson and was seconded by Republican Alex Arshinkoff after they determined that the four local Republicans who made the challenges had no evidence to back up their claims.
...
Arshinkoff, chairman of the Summit County GOP, pointed to the state party and said Chairman Robert Bennett should be held accountable.
...

Arshinkoff compared the proceedings to a "train wreck" and said representatives from the Ohio Republican Party should have been at the hearing to defend the lists of challenges that it prepared.

"This was not good," he said, adding that he wished the challenges would not have been filed. "This is like asking somebody who was just told by the dentist that we're going to pull all of your teeth out without novocaine if you want to go through the procedure again," Arshinkoff said.

"There was no evidence," Hutchinson said of the challenges.

Hutchinson said he didn't know if Horam was a Democrat or a Republican, but he was sure he won't be voting Republican in this election.

Horam, was one of the challenged voters. An immigrant from Jamaica now in his 50s. When you have the county chair of your party openly questioning what the hell the state party was doing, you would think the Ohio Republican Party would take a step back from this and just drop the challenges. Over in Delaware County, their board of elections voted to drop all 500+ challenges after nearly 3 1/2 hours of hearings.

The challenges questioned voters? eligibility based on returned mail, and that wasn?t enough, said board member Jeffrey Burkam, a Republican.

"In good faith, I believe that is the only evidence," he said.

When asked for additional evidence, David Timms, an attorney for the Ohio Republican Party, told the board he was not prepared to answer. He asked for an extension but was told he was out of time.

That was all they had. How did the Ohio GOP come to think this was a good idea? Not that they didn't get some small victories -- if you can really call them that.
Voting along party lines, the Greene County Board of Elections tied 2-2 on challenges of 71 registrants, who weren't present. About 20 of them are students from historically black Wilberforce and Central State universities. The tie means all 71 will have to vote provisionally, despite assurances from university officials that the students are qualified to vote.

"The Republicans just refused to accept that," said board Chairman Fred Hall, a Democrat. "It was a very disappointing situation that was going on."

Republican board member Grace Ramos denied Hall's assertion that the challenges were racially and politically motivated.

"These young people had their mail returned up to three times," she said. "We don't want to suppress any votes, we just want to make sure every voter is eligible."

In Champaign County, the elections board put 173 of 187 challenged registrants "on a suspect registration list because they did not appear at the hearing," attorney Whitman wrote, "allowing them to vote only by provisional ballot even if they can prove their residency on Election Day."

Clark County's Board of Elections sustained all but about 40 of 96 challenges.

Miami County's elections board is to meet at 3 p.m. today for a hearing on 32 challenges of voter residency Republicans filed last week. The Warren County board is to hear challenges at 9 a.m. today.

Of course, now the Ohio Democratic Party has filed an additional motion (PDF) to halt hearings throughout the state and toss the results of any hearings (presumably excepting cases like in Summit County). You can find all documents in this case here.

The Ohio GOP appealed the district court judge's initial TRO on the hearings in 6 counties to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 6th Circuit denied the appeal. All the legal filings and orders can be found here (in PDF). You would hope that the Ohio GOP would just let this particular screw-up go. I honestly think they managed to get out of what could have been a bigger PR disaster, disillusioning blow to their party faithful while galvanizing the Democrats further by the Democrat's successful suit to get the TRO.

I mean, some still manage to see a conspiracy and brilliant manipulation (though some key facts are dead wrong) by Republicans. This is what I said about the theory about it:

I love a good conspiracy theory. So let's go through this. The Ohio GOP brings rushed, flawed pre-election challenges against roughly 35,000 voters in 65 counties. Within a couple days of that, they had to pull nearly a quarter of the challenges because of their own mistakes and errors. Papers around the state are pointing out that some of the challenged are actual members of the military serving in Iraq. At least half of the remaining challenges looked to be tossed because they were voters who were previously registered but failed to vote in the last election and may have moved without notifying. Doesn't matter, they can't come off the rolls yet under federal law. So the Ohio GOP is looking a huge embarrassing strategic goof. Handing the Dems a statewide reason to get further galvanized to get out and vote, while demoralizing the GOP faithful.

But wait, this was planned for because the one political party in Ohio dumber than the Ohio GOP is the Ohio Democratic Party. Sure enough, they pull plaintiffs from NE Ohio to be the lead in a class action filed in SE Ohio with a Clinton-appointed judge to halt the challenges. Providing a new item to try and re-galvanize the Republican base in the final weekend, provide additional pretext to do the election day challenges, and the high partisan tones requires additional police presence at the polls to keep the peace.

This also gives the Ohio GOP the excuse they needed to drop the really dumb and apparently evidence free challenges -- for example Summit County which wasn't one of the 6 counties where the TRO was applied had the hearings on Thursday and then dismissed the nearly 1000 challenges because the Ohio GOP came forward with no evidence other than the fact that some post cards sent to registered voters came back undelivered.

Brilliant strategy. Such forward thinking.
Tell you what, if the Ohio GOP was really that smart, they deserve to be in power. But no. I offer further evidence to the contrary.

Republicans doubt it is still possible to hold challenge hearings before the election in the six counties named in the lawsuit filed by the Ohio Democratic Party ? including Franklin and Cuyahoga counties, which account for the bulk of the challenges.

So the GOP wants all of the remaining 23,000 or so voters whose challenges haven?t been rejected or withdrawn to be given provisional ballots to ensure any fraud will be caught.

I suppose they figure it's worth a shot at this point, but really, they need to let it go.

Now, moving to the election day voting challenges. The case in Cinci started holding hearings yesterday. It continues. It is being held before the same judge who issued the TRO in the election board challenges.

[Here's a surprisingly interesting tidbit about the judge who is hearing the case. "She is the wife of noted class-action lawyer Stanley Chesley, a prominent contributor to Democratic campaigns." Funny that fact hasn't gotten much play yet. According to Political Moneyline, a check on his donations in the 2004 cycle shows 19 donations from Stan Chesley in Cinci. 6 were to Republican candidates or parties for $14,400 (including $9000 to the Kentucky Republican Party, $1900 for Sen. Bunning (Ky) and $2000 for Bush-Cheney's primary campaign). Of his 13 contributions totalling $50,500 to Democrats and the DNC ($36,000 to the DNC) , $10,000 was to various Democratic Presidential hopefuls in the primary. I'm not sure why he gave money to the Bush-Cheney primary, but the rest of his Republican contributions were definitely out of personal relations/business interests.]

Well, another lawsuit against the Election Day challengers has been filed. All actual documents that have been filed can be found here. The case seeks to find the law to be unconstitutional.
The law Democrats have challenged in their suit was first passed in Ohio on May 19, 1886. It was part of a new voter registration law passed after an 1885 Ohio Supreme Court ruling that Ohio's registration law was too restrictive and ran counter to voter suffrage.

The 1886 law has been recategorized in Ohio's statutes at least three times since it was adopted, most recently in 1953.
...
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge John Adams -- a George W. Bush appointee -- and Magistrate George Limbert -- a Bill Clinton appointee.
The plaintiffs claim that if voters are successfully challenged, then they can't vote and there is no further chance of appeal. I'm not sure if that is true or not. I am having trouble keeping it all straight, but I thought that they could still cast a provisional ballot even if they were successfully challenged, so that there would be a chance to offer further proof or confirm afterwards the eligibility. Even if that isn't the rule yet, it could very well be ordered to resolve that issue.

I can't help but think that the second lawsuit was filed because the first one is such a poor argument of law and fact, that they figured it was best to try and do it right. Still, the challengers were known to be coming for over 2 weeks. Both parties filed their lists and even had training sessions last week. To file the action today, seems very wrong, and merely an attempt to prevent any time to appeal.

It's no wonder this was the front page banner headline in the Cleveland Plain Dealer today:

Confusion reigns over Ohio voting

Gee, you think. I'm having trouble keeping it all in some order. No wonder the Justice Department is tripling the number of poll watchers it is sending out this year.

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has issued a directive on how to handle election challengers at the polls. It just screams for more lawsuits:

Fears of political operatives challenging the eligibility of voters on Election Day have intensified after Ohio's top election official issued an order that could boost the number of challengers in polling places.

Secretary of State Ken Blackwell this week sent a directive to county election boards saying they should allow a challenger at every precinct, not just every polling place - greatly increasing the number of potential challengers. Some polling places cover three or four precincts.

The directive seems to contradict Ohio law, which says political parties should be limited to one challenger each per polling place.

I think he's going to have to backtrack on this one. The only people I really have sympathy for in this election are those civic minded individuals who actually volunteer to work the polls. This year it is even more thankless, and scrutinized job.

And we have an actual attempt to keep people from the polls by an unknown person or group.

The Lake County Board of Elections said Thursday that a letter being mailed to some of the county's newly registered voters is phony, and is not an official Board of Elections letter, reported NewsChannel5's Tracy Carloss.

The letter is printed on stationary that looks like it's from the board and tells voters that some groups registered people illegally, and that those who registered through these groups won't be able to vote on Tuesday.

Lake County officials are worried that more of these letters may be sent.

The illegal registrations were through ACT and the NAACP's Voter Fund. Voter Fund was also the group that hired the person that paid a person in crack to register voters. Lake County also had entire blocks that applied for absentee ballots, but they never announced/figured out who was behind that.

Of course everyone is pointing fingers.
"This is a deliberate attempt to undermine our democracy in the most partisan manner," said Ron Colvin, head of the Lake County branch of the NAACP, one of the four supposedly voided groups.

Colvin was stunned when an "urgent advisory" dated Oct. 22 reached his Painesville home. It claimed to disqualify voters registered by the NAACP, the Democrats' presidential campaign, their local congressional campaign, or the voter drive America Coming Together.

Colvin said other Painesville voters got the same letter.

Lake Sheriff Dan Dunlap is investigating.

Jess Goode, ACT's Ohio spokesman, said: "This is proof positive that the Republicans are trying to steal the election in Ohio. They know they can't win if all legitimate Ohio voters cast their ballots, so they're kicking up a storm of voter intimidation and suppression."

Dale Fellows, chairman of the Lake County Republican Party and an elections board member, countered: "It's absolutely horrible to even suggest that. The Lake County Republican Party has conducted itself professionally and above board."

Fellows said the letter just might be a reverse hoax - a Democratic frame-up.

The unsigned advisory warns people registered by any of the four groups "that you will not be able to vote until the next election." The advisory letterhead doesn't match the board's real letterhead. The envelope was postmarked in Cleveland, with no return address.

Voters have reported other illegal ploys in Democratic and Republican neighborhoods alike, from stealing signs to collecting absentee ballots (a felony) to telling voters that Tuesday's election has been postponed.

I need a drink.

 

Ohio Elections -- Welcome to Hell

Compared to what is happening in courts and county boards of elections around Ohio, I almost wish the activities with my 2-year old daughter had been all day long rather than the morning to early afternoon. That's right, hanging out with more than a dozen hyper 2 year olds getting candy is looking better than what is happening in this state. Florida in 2000 looks to have nothing on Ohio in 2004 I've lost track of the number of lawsuits already brought, and more were filed today. On November 2, I think I'll vote then come home draw the shades, put in DVDs all day and night. Won't even look at the local stations or the cable news channels. There are some things I just don't think my daughter should see on TV.



Thursday, October 28, 2004
 

Ohio Election -- The Latest Lawsuit Challenge

Since I really started daily blogging on the legal wrangling over the Ohio election, Election Law @ Moritz has been an invaluable resource. They have been on top of making all of the documents filed in the cases available. Once more, they do so with the latest lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District Of Ohio.

The complaint (PDF) appears short on facts and law, but long on allegations of intent to racially discriminate with the use of election challengers, and that the law is an old "Jim Crow" law. The answer (PDF) points out many factual errors alleged in the complaint, and seems to have a much firmer position in law. It would be absolutely insane if the district court judge did not dismiss the case. Some more info on the "plaintiffs" are in this article.

Regarding Summit County Board of Elections hearing on the challenges. The 4-member panel (2 Republicans and 2 Democrats) unanimously voted to toss the challenges at the hearing this morning.
The move to dismiss came from Republican board member Joseph Hutchinson, after several hearings showed that the people making the challenges had no evidence to back up their claims.

The crowd was angry. Many of those being challenged were longtime voters who expressed concern that they had to take time off of work to appear to defend their election rights.

The group being challenged was varied -- old and young, black and white, professional, blue collar, veterans, immigrants, students. Many were being assisted by volunteer attorneys for the Ohio Voter Protection Coalition.

In addition to dismissing the challenges, the elections board agreed that none of those voters who had their registrations called into question could be challenged again at the polls. The board was giving each a letter to be presented at the polls Tuesday should their registrations be challenged.

The chair of the Summit County Republican Party (also on the Board of Elections) placed the blame for the challenges on the Ohio GOP.

The only Ohio political party dumber than the Ohio GOP has been the Ohio Democratic Party. If they were even halfway competent they would have recognized that these challenges were a farce and would have served to galvanize their base while being a solid demoralizer for Ohio Republicans having to see their party act so stupid. It would have been statewide. Instead the Dems reacted with a lawsuit to give the Republicans time to regroup and change tactics.

Only a few days and many drinks to go.
 

Ohio Election -- Surveying the Response

The actual order is finally available (PDF). It's 11 pages long, but the analysis and conclusion are only from pgs. 8-10. I find it a little tenuous, but that could just be me. The finding that the timing so close to the election for the challenges to occur ignores the fact that the final day for voter registration only ended in early October, and there was a backlog in many counties to process that it took a week longer before the rolls were completed. It would have been difficult to have made the challenges much earlier than they were.

Technically the decision only affects the 6 counties named in the action -- Cuyahoga, Franklin, Trumbull, Lawrence, Medina and Scioto -- but the Ohio Democratic Party has said it should apply to all counties and will try to add them to the order if they intend to go forward. In Lucas County (Toledo) notices had already been sent and the hearing is set for Saturday. Whether it happens there and elsewhere, will depend on what comes out of the hearing on Friday.

It's amusing to see the 35,000 challenges claim still being bandied about in the stories, even though it was clear that many were already dropped and many more of them would have been summarily dropped by the county election boards.

Delaware County is going forward with its hearings today.

Summit County (Akron) has its nearly 750 of its nearly 1000 challenges taking place today. They are going forward anyways. The Akron Beacon Journal article talks a little about the named plaintiffs and how they ended up in the litigation.

The case was filed on behalf of two Medina County women, Amy Miller and Mindi Haddix of Sharon Township, who found their registrations challenged.

Steve Bailey, a Medina lawyer who is county counsel for the Voter Protection Program for Democratic Sen. John Kerry's campaign, said he began contacting the 245 people whose registrations were challenged last week in Medina County.

He said it appeared that both women were challenged because they live in the township but have mailing addresses in other communities. Both agreed to be plaintiffs in the case because they were upset over having their voting registrations questioned, Bailey said.

Named as defendants in the case were Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the boards of elections in the six counties and their members.

Lawyers in Ohio Attorney General James Petro's office represented Blackwell and argued that he should not have been a party to the case because the challenges are a county issue that should be dealt with by local election boards.

Sullivan said the six counties were chosen because they include the state's two largest counties as well as several others where the party knew of challenges to legitimate voters.

Medina County is in Northeast Ohio. I'll get more into this a bit later.

Of course, the Ohio GOP is saying, that this means there will just be more challenges at the polls. This could be more delays, longer lines, and some people may just not have the time.
Ohio GOP lawyer Weaver said stopping the challenge hearings will only cause problems at the polls because that's now where the challenges will have to take place.

"Both parties will have observers at the polls. It's bound to slow things down. This will lead to long lines. We could have had these checked out now," he said.

The point was also made by Edward Still at Votelaw as well. Or maybe not. There is now another lawsuit to consider
Dlott, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, is expected to rule later this week on a similar class-action that would stop other voters from being challenged when they show up at the polls on Election Day.

That case was filed Wednesday by Marian and Donald Spencer, a married couple in their 80s who are longtime Cincinnati civil-rights activists. Marian Spencer, the first black woman elected to the Cincinnati City Council, said she fears that predominantly black precincts will be targeted for the Election Day challenges.

Judge Dlott in granting the restraining order against the hearings said that the timing of filing the challenges was a problem. The poll challengers have been known about for a couple weeks. Both party filed their list of challengers by the deadline last Friday, and the lawsuit was only filed on Wednesday? Seems like the timing of the suit should be taken into account when considering it. While the law is obscure and from 1953, it has been used in counties at various times. Apparently in Lake County, it was last used in 1983. Lake County, even now is a heavily white county. It was even more so in 1983, so the law itself is content neutral.

As I have said from the beginning. The Ohio GOP were idiots to file the challenges. At best they would have challenged maybe 15,000 voter registrations in the state after cleaning up the mistakes, but the negative publicity should have encouraged and further galvanized the Democrat and anti-Bush crowd for turnout. A clear, easy case to make that the Republicans were trying to suppress turnout.

Instead the Ohio Democrats probably screwed themselves a bit in their victory.

They use sympathetic plaintiffs -- no question -- but clearly forum shopping for who they think is the most liberal judge in the Ohio federal district courts. Why else would their lawyer and the lead plaintiffs -- all from NE Ohio -- file in the Ohio Southern District (Cinci) rather than the Northern District Court in Cleveland? A dreaded Clinton appointee. Think the Ohio GOP won't push that this weekend in trying to mobilize the base? Show how a Clinton-appointed- interfering-activist judge is trying to mess with the Ohio election?

By defeating the pre-election challenges, they hand the Ohio GOP the excuse to really slow down the polls by making the challenges at the polls.

Heightening the partisan mood, with the challenges, this will necessitate actual police presence at many polling locations. Just to reduce the risk of violence and confrontation. If you believe the line of reasoning, that the mere presence of police at polling locations discourages poor and minority voting then the Ohio Democrats just f**ked themselves. Ohio Dems and the liberal voting advocates can claim they were there for suppression, but they helped provide the justification.

 

Ohio Election -- Interfering with my Sports Watching

When I was at the Rutgers-Pitt football game last Saturday, the one thing we could all agree upon was that political commercials were the worst thing to see when trying to watch sports on TV -- whether it was a game or just SportsCenter. No matter where we stood on the candidates or the issues, seeing an ad just made us feel negative towards the group, party or candidate that sponsored it.

So, last night, as I was trying to catch a little SportsCenter, I was subjected to an ad from an anti-Bush 527 group called, Bring Ohio Back. This group is high on celebrity endorsements. The main page features comments from such luminaries as Fisher Stevens, Chad Lowe and Julianna Margulies. I tend to laugh at such things because celebrity endorsements tend to be high on the unintentional comedy scale. At this point they seem especially focused on getting out the vote in Northeast Ohio:
Al Gore received approximately 140,000 fewer votes in Northeast Ohio than Bill Clinton.

Northeast Ohio has the largest concentration of voters, a significant number of swing voters, and a representative mix of urban and suburban voters.

Cleveland is the most important media market in the state.

The ad (viewable in QuickTime) I saw, features two famous Ohioans -- former Senator John Glenn and pretend president Martin Sheen. Martin Sheen starts out by lobbing a grenade with this statement:
It seems that Republicans and George Bush don't want you to vote. Beware of their dirty tricks. We simply cannot trust them.
My jaw dropped.

Now maybe it's me. I'm a RINO, liberal Republican -- socially libertarian, fiscally/defense conservative -- whatever you want to call it. That's fine. I can't help but think that this sort of ad will get out the vote -- the Republican vote. This group basically sees Republicans as the enemy. As some evil force. You think it doesn't piss off anyone who leans Republican or center-right? They may be targeting Cleveland which is heavy, heavy Democrat, but the surrounding counties are more split and they also see this ad.

I'm not shocked that the people in this group believe this. Partisans on both side have this insane view of the other. I just can't believe they think this is effective marketing.

Election Day can't come soon enough.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004
 

Ohio Election -- Challenges Restrained and the S**t Just Hit

I'm stunned. I really am. Whether she intended to or not. Whether she has realized what she has done or not, US District Court Judge Susan J. Dlott has just about guaranteed that Election Day in Ohio will be a complete mess. My deeper fear, given the highly partisan-charged atmosphere of this election, is that there will be violence at some precincts.

The lawsuit filed by the Ohio Democratic Party to block the challenge hearings before all county board of elections was heard this morning. Much to my surprise, the judge actually granted the TRO orally at 4pm. Her press release (PDF) said a written order would be issued today, but I have yet to read that anyone has it on the web. The best place to track and see these documents is Election Law @ Moritz (school of law at Ohio St.).

The TRO is to apply to all boards, whether they have 70 initial challenges or more than a thousand.

A hearing on the preliminary injunction won't be heard until Friday morning. Even if she would lift the TRO and denies the injunction, the damage has been done. In Cuyahoga County, the hearings for the challenged voters were to occur on Friday and Saturday. Notices had to be mailed and now they are not able to mail out the rest of the notices until after the judge rules on the preliminary hearing. That would at best mean sending them out Friday afternoon. No way to hold the hearings before the polls open on Tuesday.

This means that the polls will be the only place for the challenges to occur. This means more election day challenges. This will lead to more provisional ballots being utilized and slowing the counting of ballots as the provisional ballots will have to be verified and confirmed separately. The results in Ohio might be further delayed and of course there will be more legal battles over what provisional ballots should have been counted or not.

The more challenges at the polling locations on election day with both Republican and Democrat monitors there, means more partisan anger and conflict between the parties. You don't think this could spill over into some physical violence as the long election day goes on? This is good because? This means the police will have to have a more visible presence at some of the precincts, to deter the risk. All of this will of course allow Democrats and liberal groups to point to it and scream about more attempts at voter suppression. More partisan complaints.

Like I said in the previous posts, I don't think the Republicans should have made these challenges on such a broad scale. It was reckless and was poorly thought out. Democrats, though, can't seem to help wanting to escalate this. The "35,000" challenges was already more than halved before the first hearings before any county board of elections. The number was only going to keep dropping.

This case, may also further mobilize the Republican and conservative base in Ohio. You have an election lawsuit, and what can easily be spun as judicial interference from a Clinton appointed judge. Think that won't be used to get the base fired up to vote on Tuesday? Well done. If that happens, then that might not only push Ohio to Bush, but get that stupid anti-gay marriage amendment to the Ohio Constitution passed.

I've moved beyond stunned to pissed. Thankfully my daughter is now asleep and I will be able to watch the new South Park, "Douche and Turd" (Choose or Die).
 

Ohio Election -- Challenges and Challengers

Despite the numerous withdrawn challenges from the Ohio GOP, plenty are still to be fought.

The Ohio Democratic Party has filed a federal lawsuit to block all challenges.
Saying the challenges were sloppy and violate federal law, Democrats want an order halting hearings that county boards of elections have scheduled to determine whether those voters live where they are registered and should remain on the rolls.

A preliminary hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. today before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott in Cincinnati. She was appointed by President Clinton in 1995.

Unless a court says otherwise, Franklin County elections officials said they plan to proceed with hearings on 2,371 challenges Thursday. Boards in 61 other Ohio counties also have scheduled hearings.

You can read the complaint, motion for a TRO and motion to dismiss here (all in PDF), thanks to Election Law.

I hate the way these challenges were made. Actually I hate them period, but I don't think another lawsuit is the answer. At this point, the actual number of challenges are dropping rapidly, as there is a little time to sort some of them out. Again, I don't think the Ohio GOP should have done this, but given the surge of new registrants and how late they had to register, they didn't have much of a choice but to wait until now to file the challenges.

Montgomery County (Dayton) has dropped all of its 2,319 challenges, though the Ohio GOP Chariman is claiming it just means there will be more election day challenges, despite the resistance from the Montgomery County Republican Party to votiong challengers. Licking County had only 52 challenges, and they were all dropped as well. And pissed off board of elections let loose:

A frustrated Licking County Board of Elections last night dropped charges against 52 voters who had been accused of illegally registering to vote.

"I'm not striking anybody off these rolls," said board Chairman Mike King after receiving proof from at least 46 of the newly registered voters that they live in the precincts in which they are registered.

That was enough for the four-member board to also dismiss charges against the remaining six voters in question.

With no problems found, board member Steve Harrington lashed out at the Granville resident who filed the charges last week.

"You said you did not want to burden our office, but you did," Harrington told James B. Barton.

Barton had said the 52 voters, including some military personnel, were illegally registered according to data from the Board of Elections that identified specific voters whose registration confirmations were returned to the board as undeliverable.

Ironically, the contested voters did receive notification in the mail this week -- required by Ohio law -- about their registrations being challenged.

Licking County is about the 16th largest county in Ohio.

The Ohio Secretary of State office has issued guidelines for dealing with challenged voter registrations and what happens if the voters try to vote on election day. The rules and the ruling look very fair to me. I think the Ohio GOP is probably not happy with the ruling, but if it has any brains will keep its collective mouth shut. Here's what the guidelines for election boards on challenge hearings:
- Election boards must decide immediately after the hearing whether to keep voters on the registration rolls or remove them, based on the individual circumstances of each voter.

- If the board rules a voter shall remain on the rolls, he or she shall be given a regular ballot at the polls.

- If the board decides to remove a voter, that must be done on a "conditional" basis. It means if that voter tries to vote on Election Day, he or she will be given a provisional ballot.

- Such ballots are held for 10 days, and if election workers verify the voter was eligible, the ballot will counted and the voter restored to the rolls.

- If the board -- which consists of two Democrats and two Republicans -- votes 2-2 on whether to remove a voter from the rolls, those voters shall receive a provisional ballot at the polls so eligibility can be determined later.

- Election boards may consolidate the cases of challenged voters who do not appear for their hearings, instead of voting on each individual challenge.

- Anyone who has been challenged has the right to appear and testify, call witnesses and be represented by a lawyer. If you have been challenged, here is what election officials recommend you do:

- Bring some form of official documentation to the hearing confirming your residence.

- Examples include a valid Ohio driver's license, a utility bill or a government check with your name and address.

- You may also file a notarized affidavit attesting to your residence if you unable to appear in person.
I really like the decision to give a challenged voter who may not have attended, missed or not been notified of the hearing a provisional ballot to vote. This strikes me as fair and reasonable. Like I said, it should piss off the Ohio Republican Party. Considering Summit County (Akron) has almost 1,000 challenges to address before Tuesday, as does Lucas County (Toledo) and Cuyahoga County still has at least 9,000 challenges -- almost half of the nearly 18,000 challenges brought by the Ohio Republican Party are "inactive" voters who cannot be removed from the rolls until they fail to vote in 2 consecutive Presidential Elections.

Stark County (Canton) has only 66 challenges to address, while Medina has almost 250 and Lake has 94.

Election day challenges will still be taking place. I find it amusing that my county, Lake actually will have more Democratic Challengers than Republican -- 72 to 35. I have no idea whether there will be any posted in Eastlake, but since it is one of the larger cities in the county I would guess so.

In Toledo, where more than 29,000 absentee ballots have been requested, they are starting to flood the offices.

The Dayton Daily News hits one of my pet peeves by calling a group non-partisan when it isn't.
Also on Tuesday, the nonpartisan Ohio Election Protection Coalition urged Blackwell to carefully control the challenge process, and to be on the alert for "dirty tricks and widespread voter intimidation and suppression."

"Ohio is poised to be the next Florida," the coalition's state director Jocelyn Travis wrote to Blackwell. "We know that you do not want our state's election process to be called into question, or to expose Ohio to the legal controversies and global ridicule that rained down on Florida."

I've mentioned them before. One thing they are not is "nonpartisan." Considering all their warnings are things people are claiming only the Republicans are doing, it is a joke.

A similar, possibly the same group -- both are funded by People for the American Way -- was at least called what they were in the Plain Dealer.
The federal law says inactive voters must stay on the rolls until they fail to vote in two federal elections and then don't respond to mail from the local elections board - a process that can take as long as eight years, some election officials say.

"Just because they are inactive means nothing," said Leslye Huff, the legal coordinator for the Election Protection Project, a coalition of liberal groups and voting-rights advocates. "All an inactive voter has to do is show up and vote."

The group seems to have two sites, one under PFAW. And here, where they acknowledge working with PFAW. Like I said, I think these may be the same groups operating with other names.

 

Not A Good Start

DSL Connection went down, daughter up early and only now getting some coffee.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004
 

A Historic Event

In Israel, the Knesset voted 67-45 to approve of PM Ariel Sharon's pullout of Settlements from Gaza and the West Bank, and unilaterally withdraw from the areas by the end of 2005. Sharon refused a chance to take a political shortcut and go with a public referendum -- as proposed by the hardline members of his own Likud party -- despite a clear majority support for the pullout, because such a referendum would have delayed the withdrawal by at least a year.

Sharon had long been a supporter of the settlements, but has realized that keeping the areas just isn't viable for the survival of the Jewish State; and with no one on the Palestinian side willing to be serious about a negotiated peace (that would mean the end of the whole "right of return" crap) has decided to proceed towards providing security and safety for Israel. While settlers and members of the hard right there, view him as a "traitor," Victor Davis Hanson makes a good case comparing him to Ajax and other tragic heroes needed in war but discarded in peace.
 

Ohio Election -- Withdrawn Challenges and Deadlines

Man, press time is killing some papers in this news cycle. The 35,000+ election challenges I mentioned yesterday? The numbers have fallen.
State Republicans withdrew thousands of more than 35,000 challenges to new voter registrations because of errors in their filings apparently caused by a computer glitch.

The state GOP filed the challenges Friday in 65 of Ohio?s 88 counties, saying mail sent to the newly registered voters was returned as undeliverable.
...
It?s too late to refile the challenges because the state law the party used requires an 11-day window before the election, officials said.

The problem arose in a command entered in a database program used to assign ward or precinct numbers to the addresses on registration cards, said Jason Mauk, Ohio Republican Party spokesman.

Other counties have mentioned similar problems but haven?t officially notified the party if they will reject the challenges, Mauk said, adding the party doesn?t expect to withdraw more.

In the Dayton area, they will be pulling almost all of their 2300+ challenges, as they were completely embarrassed to find out one of their challenges was to a soldier serving in Iraq. Whoops.

They are also pulling a majority of their challenges in the Cincinnati area and over half around Columbus. Of course, the Ohio GOP is threatening its own lawsuits over rejected challenges.

In the strongly Democrat areas of Summit and Cuyahoga counties? No withdrawals at this time.

In Cleveland, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections will be renting the Cleveland Convention Center to hold the hearings (See, the CCC still is useful!) on the 17,000 challenges. Hell of a system, too.
The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections must find more than 17,000 registered voters by Friday to tell them they may be culled from the rolls by Republican challengers.

One problem: the very reason these voters are being challenged is because the elections board can't seem to reach them.

On Friday, the Ohio Republican Party filed papers questioning the validity of the registrations because the voters' addresses appeared to be wrong and the mail from the elections board was being returned.

The voters must be allowed to show that their registrations are valid before Sunday. So today, election officials will begin mailing out urgent notices to these voters to the same flawed addresses on their registration forms.

"It's almost a flaw in the law," said Michael Vu, director of the county's elections board.

The elections board plans to hold hearings Friday and Saturday at the Cleveland Convention Center to review all the challenges. But Vu said the board has never before dealt with challenges to the voter rolls, and the procedures were still unclear on Monday.

County prosecutors said the burden should be on Republicans to prove that a voter registration is invalid. But how much evidence is enough? That's one of the questions that local election officials around the state hope will be answered today by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, Ohio's chief election official.

"Almost a flaw?" I choose to laugh at this time rather than cry. Hopefully the secretary of State will put the answers up on his site.

The Akron area has almost 1,000 challenges. What a fargin' mess.

In what appears to be related to the challenges in Cuyahoga County over voter registrations, a new lawsuit (because there hadn't been one for at least a day) was filed.
The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has botched the registrations of more than 10,000 voters, preventing them from heading to the ballot box next week, according to a lawsuit filed late Monday.

The Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, the Alliance of Cleveland HUD Tenants and seven residents sued the board in federal court and claimed election board employees failed to enter new registrations on voter rolls, update changes sent in by voters and enter addresses correctly.

The suit wants the board to place the voters on the county rolls before the election, and it seeks to have a monitor placed on the case to help in the process.

Really don't know anything about the groups or much in the way of details on the case. I just keep feeling more and more sympathy for the civic-minded individuals who volunteer to work at the polls. It just doesn't seem worth it this year.

Rumors of "dirty tricks" to drive down voting gets a story.

Finally an amusing little "protest" by the Democrats outside of Secretary of State Blackwell's office yesterday in Columbus. Led by Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (Cleveland) , Rep. John Lewis of Georgia and the Steelworkers' Union President Leo Gerard. The protest, was apparently something of a dry run for after the election, with cries of "count every vote."

<>Wonder how many people actually attended. The Akron Beacon Journal says it was, "More than 1,000 Ohioans." Meanwhile the Dayton Daily News put the number at "Nearly 500 people." Finally the Columbus Dispatch dropped the number to "several hundred Democrats, union members and others." Quite a discrepancy.
 

Counterproductive

I had to go into my comments to ban some idiot who thought it a good idea to spam me for a GOTV in favor of Kerry, complete with a GOTV link to "Rock the Vote." If I was undecided, I can't think of a dumber thing to push me further away from wanting to throw my vote that way.

You would almost think it was part of a VRWC to piss off people against Kerry...

Monday, October 25, 2004
 

Eastlake -- Staying Quiet

Nothing major in Eastlake for a while, but a semi-coherent collection of odds and ends I haven't had a chance to post.

Dealing with the past, it seems that John Chiapetta's case has ex-workers watching carefully, and many others appear to be looking at more of his dealings.
Doyle confirmed that Chiappetta is "one of the persons of great interest" in an investigation that has been joined by the FBI, U.S. Department of Labor and the office of Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles.

When asked whether the various agencies are looking into allegations that former Eastlake Mayor Dan DiLiberto helped Chiappetta obtain ODOT loan payments without proper documentation, Doyle said, "No comment."

DiLiberto retired in May, citing health reasons.

Doyle shot down rumors that DiLiberto's passport has been seized and that he's been ordered not to travel outside Northeast Ohio and not to sell his condominiums in Eastlake and Ft. Myers, Fla.

"We've heard all those stories, too, and we're not aware of any such restrictions," Doyle said.

DiLiberto said he and his wife, Marilyn, currently are at their Florida home.
Considering DiLiberto's son repaid the City of Eastlake some $1200 dollars for garbage bags(?) last week, the rumors aren't going to go away.

Of course DiLiberto and Chiapetta are casting a shadow over this election in different ways. Chiapetta helped fleece the State and the City in a land development/jobs plan. The abuse by Chiappetta could cost another land developer when he tries to push a rezoning referendum through.
Jerry Borac views his gravel-covered lot along the Chagrin River as an opportunity.

Borac wants to build 40 condominiums on the property, which he says will create much-needed tax revenue for the city. He is asking voters in November to rezone his property to allow for construction.

When LuAnn Rihaly and some of her neighbors stare at the property, they see red. They not only oppose the condominiums, but they also want Borac to remove hundreds of tons of dirt they say he should not have dumped there nearly 15 years ago.

That dirt, they say, has made their flood-prone neighborhood even more vulnerable because Borac's 5.5-acre lot now acts as a barrier to flood waters.

The property is considered a "floodway" by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which administers a flood insurance program. A floodway is land where water is supposed to collect during a flood.

This is Issue 5 for Eastlake voters. We received postcards (very heavy stock) encouraging us to vote for it, from "The Committee to Beautify Eastlake," Billie Lee Borac, Treasurer (presumably Jerry's wife). The wife and I had been wondering what this issue was really about. Now we know. Chiappetta's downfall might make many voters around here very suspicious about the claims of another developer. Especially when he is claiming $260K in new revenue for 2005 and an additional $181+K per year beyond. When it sounds too good to be true...

The DiLiberto shadow, of course, is the new election to finish the rest of his term. For me, it was easy to narrow the choices. It's the budget, stupid. I guess some people can't help but insert those loftier concepts when writing about it.

There is agreement among Eastlake's six mayoral candidates that dealing with the city's precarious finances will be a considerable challenge for whoever wins Nov. 2.

But there's another related, and perhaps more daunting, task, for the next mayor: restoring residents' faith in their city government.

The six are hoping to serve the last 14 months of a term vacated by Dan DiLiberto, the longtime mayor who quit May 1 for health reasons. Several weeks later, the state auditor declared Eastlake to be in a fiscal emergency because of the $3.2 million deficit in the city's general fund.

And there is the looming question of how the city will pay for DiLiberto's pet project, a minor-league ballpark that he vowed would not cost taxpayers a dime. The Plain Dealer reported last month that the city improperly spent $1.6 million in property taxes from a sewer levy to make interest payments on stadium debt and will have to spend millions more to subsidize the project.

Honestly, my vote may have been decided for a while, but a simple statement like this convinces me.
"People are upset and angry about the image of the city," said Stephen Komarjanski, a lawyer, former councilman and DiLiberto critic. "All that will come back if we straighten out the financial problems. Obviously, the people feel they have not been told the truth."
...
Komarjanski, who twice lost mayoral elections to DiLiberto, has doubts about the financial recovery plan and thinks some of the projections are based on "wishful thinking." The city, he said, needs to make deeper cuts by eliminating all unnecessary jobs and programs.

"Everything has to be put on the table," he said. "Everything has to be reviewed, prioritized and decisions made accordingly."

People may not want to hear that. Just as they didn't want to hear Komarjanski be the lone voice fighting the ballpark -- as I recall, he was painted as a loon pissing into the wind in the last election. But Eastlake may need to strip itself of a lot of things, if for no other reason than to make sure the ballpark is paid off in the long term. There is no choice now. It has been built, it must be paid and maintained. The only thing Komarjanski needs to keep in check is a little self-righteous "told-you-so" streak that has manifested from time to time. It's off-putting and whether he likes it or not, if he becomes mayor, he needs backing from City Council.

A News-Herald Editorial from last week wouldn't actually endorse anyone yet, it merely cheered public access interviews with the candidates. If they bother to endorse, I suspect it will be at the last minute and for present Councilman Ted Andrzejewski. He and Komarjanski seem to have the most signs out in the area. Komarjanski has raised and spent the most to date.

 

Ohio Election -- Challenges and Intimidation

There are two types of challenges taking place in Ohio for this election. The first kind is the validity of voter registrations that have been processed. The Ohio GOP is challenging 35,000 in 65 of the 88 counties in Ohio. 14,000 of the challenges are in Cuyahoga (Cleveland) County alone. How did they decide to challenge some of the registrations?
...are for voters who are not receiving mail at the addresses on their voting records.

Local boards mailed the voters confirmation cards after they registered, but the cards came back as undeliverable. The boards cannot remove these voters from the rolls without proof that they no longer live in their respective counties, according to elections officials.

The fact that they are challenging this many probably registration reflects a certain degree of paranoia and nervousness over the election, but also a deep suspicion about the level of fraud that may be occurring. The Democrats are alleging the former, the Republicans claim the latter. The truth, is somewhere in the middle of course. I've been talking about the loads of voter registration fraud that has been revealed in Northeast Ohio alone in the last month, so I don't find it totally unreasonable.

Democrats after successfully getting Nader off the ballot by showing just how many fraudulent signers for his petitions there were, are being disingenuous and complete partisan hacks for pretending that there isn't a good deal of fraud going on leading up to the election. They can claim that there are legitimate reasons and excuses for some of the confirmation cards to come back as undeliverable, but given the numbers even they have to wonder.

Republicans, on the other hand, are taking this to a self-righteous extreme and are creating their own overburdening on the county board of elections in the state.

Local elections boards have until Oct. 31 to review every registration, hold hearings where the parties can present evidence and notify every voter who could be tossed from the rolls.

That could be a nightmare in Cuyahoga, where elections officials met into the night Friday to figure out how to handle all the work.

With what appears to be a fairly indiscriminate challenge to every "undeliverable" confirmation, they shifted the burden to the board of elections to figure this out. The burden shifting was part of the reason Ohio limited provisional ballots to the correct precinct. The Republican party is engaging in its own partisan BS and burden shifting.

The other, kind of challenge will be the election day voting challenge. As I mentioned last week, the deadline for filing the list of challengers in the counties was on Friday. That detente worked out in the Dayton area between the county political parties -- toast:
In Montgomery County, the local party leaders had agreed earlier this week to trust one another and avoid putting challengers in polling places. But that unraveled on Friday when the county Republican chairman, John White, was overruled by Robert Bennett, the state GOP chairman.

The Republicans filed a challenger list in 191 precincts - many of them in largely black neighborhoods around Dayton. But Bennett angrily denied that his party was targeting a specific voting bloc.

Sorry, that is crap from the state level. If the county party leaders felt able to trust each other over the matters, then the state party had no excuse to meddle. By the accounts, there were at least attempts at bi-partisanship in Montgomery County that the Ohio GOP may have trampled for no good reason. That can't help future attempts to get beyond partisanship in Montgomery County.

Here's how the challenge procedure works.

Both sides have filed long lists of challengers. The Democrats, for their part are claiming voter intimidation attempts, and the rhetoric is getting heated.

A Democratic congressman from South Carolina was in Toledo yesterday and spoke against what he said is a Republican move to suppress Democrats? right to vote and push Ohio into the GOP victory column.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, one of a number of prominent Democrats in the state on Friday and yesterday to address the issue, said the GOP is trying for a replay of the Florida voting problems of the last presidential election, which ultimately was decided in President Bush?s favor by the U.S. Supreme Court.

?I think it?s very clear that the Republicans have decided to carry on a massive voter suppression effort,? he said.
...
Mr. Clyburn spoke last night at Laborers? Local 500, 2270 Ashland Ave., to a group of largely black union workers about their right to vote.
Vice-Presidential candidate, John Edwards, also got into the act at church in Cinci and later in Dayton.
Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards waded into the debate over Ohio voting challenges Sunday during two stops before predominantly black crowds in Cincinnati and Dayton.

At a Cincinnati church Edwards, a U.S. senator from North Carolina, told the congregation there are "forces against us" trying to keep Democrats from voting Nov. 2. In an afternoon rally on the grounds of Dayton's Dunbar High School, Edwards alluded to the issue again.

"We are going to make sure if you want to vote you are going to get to cast a ballot," he told the audience of around 1,500.
...
Edwards' speech at Dunbar High School brought out celebrities willing to trek to Dayton to help the Kerry-Edwards ticket in the waning days of the presidential campaign. Actor LaVar Burton, television judge Joe Brown and singer BeBe Winans spoke to the Dayton crowd before Edwards arrived.
The fact that the GOP is putting voting challengers in every minority precinct in the state, only lends credence to the charge. The voter challenge stuff, strikes me as a dumb move. It really only heightens tensions and makes me worry about violence breaking out at the polls in some instances. With so many of the polling locations at schools, it's no wonder the schools are adding security or even considering canceling classes that day.

I believe in our system. I think it's the best there is, but this s**t is making hard to feel that good about it.

 

Ohio Election -- Provisional Stability

This happened Saturday and it was the top story of the Sunday Cleveland Plain Dealer. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Northern District of Ohio judge that ruled provisional ballots could be cast from anywhere in the county. Instead, the court sided with the State of Ohio and Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in ruling that provisional ballots would only be counted if cast from the voter's precinct. You can find the order here (scanned PDF), courtesy of Election Law at Ohio St. and Prof. Tokaji. Since this came from the 6th Circuit, it presumably reverses the decision held by a Michigan District Court, since Michigan is in the same Appeals Court region as Ohio.

In some fairly positive news from the partisan world, the Democratic Party has said it won't appeal the decision to the full Court of Appeal at this point. Like Prof. Hasen I believed that the provisional ballot issue looked to be the major litigation issue and still think the matter will end up at the Supreme Court.

Make no mistake, this was going to be a major headache, fraud issue, time consuming and very expensive for the county board of elections if they not only had to check provisional ballots to see if someone was registered, but sort into the right precinct and try to catch possible fraud and duplicate ballots. You want to talk about your unfunded mandate from the federal government, HAVA was looking like a huge one.

As it stands in Ohio, with the amazing number of new voter registrations still being processed, many county board of elections have already had to get more money from their counties to pay for the additional hours and workers needed.

 

Miss A Day, Miss A Lot

Another saturday with a trip to Pittsburgh. Sunday was spent with the family and a little tension with the wife over the Eagles-Browns game -- my Eagles won in OT. Needless to say I didn't get to turn on the computer until late in the evening. Lots happened over the weekend regarding the Ohio election. I'll be getting to it later in the day, I hope. I'll just say that the level of election chaos in Ohio dropped significantly.

 

 
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