Supreme Court Rejects GOP's Ohio Voter Challenge
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court sided Friday with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.
The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don't match records in other government databases.
Ohio Republicans contended the information for counties would help prevent fraud. Brunner said the GOP is trying to disenfranchise voters.
In a brief unsigned opinion, the justices said they were not commenting on whether Ohio is complying with a provision of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 that lays out requirements for verifying voter eligibility.
Instead, they said they were granting Brunner's request because it appears that the law does not allow private entities, like the Ohio GOP, to file suit to enforce the provision of the law at issue.
"They didn't deal with the merits of the case," said Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett. "What they dealt with was a technicality on whether we had standing or not to bring the action."
About 200,000 of 666,000 voters who have registered in Ohio since Jan. 1 have records that don't match. Brunner has said the discrepancies most likely stem from innocent clerical errors rather than fraud but has set up a verification plan. LinkHere
The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don't match records in other government databases.
Ohio Republicans contended the information for counties would help prevent fraud. Brunner said the GOP is trying to disenfranchise voters.
In a brief unsigned opinion, the justices said they were not commenting on whether Ohio is complying with a provision of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 that lays out requirements for verifying voter eligibility.
Instead, they said they were granting Brunner's request because it appears that the law does not allow private entities, like the Ohio GOP, to file suit to enforce the provision of the law at issue.
"They didn't deal with the merits of the case," said Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett. "What they dealt with was a technicality on whether we had standing or not to bring the action."
About 200,000 of 666,000 voters who have registered in Ohio since Jan. 1 have records that don't match. Brunner has said the discrepancies most likely stem from innocent clerical errors rather than fraud but has set up a verification plan. LinkHere
BREAKING: U.S. Supreme Court throws out largest GOP "voter fraud" case involving ACORN, others
Well, isn't that interesting. The biggest Republican "voter fraud" cause, involving ACORN among others, just got thrown out by George Bush's conservative Republican US Supreme Court. And make no mistake - as one of the leading conservative publications, Human Events, pointed out yesterday, this case was all about ACORN:
The full 6th Circuit Court on Tuesday night decided in favor of the Ohio Republican Party in their suit requiring the use of government records to verify the identities and validity of the thousands of newly-registered voters by outside groups such as ACORN. Ohio’s Secretary of State, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, had previously refused that standard stating that she didn’t believe it was required by Ohio law. Brunner was also recently required by a federal court to turn over new voter registration data from county boards of elections for identity verification. The Ohio GOP tried to take away the voting rights of 200,000 voters in that state, after ACORN and others registered voters with misspelled names. George Bush's conservative Republican U.S. Supreme Court just took the side of Democrats in Ohio, and ACORN, and overturned a lower court's decision which took the side of the GOP. Ohio's Secretary of State appealed that earlier ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court -- and won:
The Supreme Court is siding with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.The justices on Friday overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don't match records in other government databases.Nice work by the Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. The GOP does everything possible to suppress the vote. Today, the George Bush's conservative Republican U.S. Supreme Court suppressed the GOP and told the nation, the only fraud is the Republican party. LinkHere
The full 6th Circuit Court on Tuesday night decided in favor of the Ohio Republican Party in their suit requiring the use of government records to verify the identities and validity of the thousands of newly-registered voters by outside groups such as ACORN. Ohio’s Secretary of State, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, had previously refused that standard stating that she didn’t believe it was required by Ohio law. Brunner was also recently required by a federal court to turn over new voter registration data from county boards of elections for identity verification. The Ohio GOP tried to take away the voting rights of 200,000 voters in that state, after ACORN and others registered voters with misspelled names. George Bush's conservative Republican U.S. Supreme Court just took the side of Democrats in Ohio, and ACORN, and overturned a lower court's decision which took the side of the GOP. Ohio's Secretary of State appealed that earlier ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court -- and won:
The Supreme Court is siding with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.The justices on Friday overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don't match records in other government databases.Nice work by the Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. The GOP does everything possible to suppress the vote. Today, the George Bush's conservative Republican U.S. Supreme Court suppressed the GOP and told the nation, the only fraud is the Republican party. LinkHere
The current spate of trumped-up allegations of "voter fraud" coming from John McCain's campaign and his Republican allies and the FBI's decision to investigate represents exactly the same sort of politicization of justice that is at the root of an ongoing investigation into the firing of federal prosecutors, Barack Obama's campaign alleges.Obama attorney Bob Bauer has asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to expand the authority of the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the US Attorney firings to also include the fraud allegations. The campaign released a seven-page letter (.pdf) Bauer wrote to Mukasey on Friday requesting the investigation."Now, on the emerging evidence of recent conduct undertaken by Bush Administration officials, Republican Party officials, and representatives of the McCain-Palin campaign," he wrote, "it appears that further misconduct of the same nature, directly relevant to the work of the Special Prosecutor, requires that the scope of the Special Prosecutor's assignment be expanded."Bauer cites the case of former US Attorney David Iglesias, who represented the District of New Mexico until 2006. Bush administration officials reportedly conspired to sack Iglesias in part because of his unwillingness to bring specious voter-fraud charges before an election. Iglesias this week called the voter fraud investigations a scare tactic and said he was shocked to see the FBI was pursuing an investigation based on similarly unmerited accusations of fraud. On a conference call with reporters Friday, Bauer slammed the "illicit involvement of senior law enforcement officials" in leaking the details of the so-called fraud investigation. The Obama lawyer noted that the leak came "literally within 24 hours" of McCain's statement at Wednesday night's debate that ACORN was threatening the "fabric of our democracy."The McCain campaign has turned attacking ACORN into a central theme of its campaign in recent weeks, with vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin continuing the assault at a rally in Ohio on Friday. The community organization, witch which Obama has previously been involved, has produced a relatively small number of inaccurate registration forms in connection with its drive to sign up a million new voters, but it has not been registering voters directly on Obama's behalf and there's no evidence that it's actions in this or any previous election cycle have led to widespread voter fraud.Bauer said the "reckless and incendiary" attacks from the McCain campaign were aimed more at intimidating voters than at ferreting out fraud. ACORN primarily registered low-income and minority voters, and voting rights advocates fear those voters might not turn out on Election Day to avoid potential harassment at the polls.The Supreme Court also delivered a setback to the GOP on Friday, ruling against Ohio Republicans who have been feuding with the Secretary of State over registration rules.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 4:18 PM
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