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Oct

17

McCain campaign responds re: Ohio GOP loss to SOS Brunner


From the Ohio Republican Party website:

“Today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court does not address violations of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. Rather, the Court ruled that Congress had likely not authorized private individuals or political parties to bring suit under the section of HAVA requiring voter registration verification through data-matching. It remains our belief that American citizens should be guaranteed that their legitimate votes are not wiped away by illegally cast ballots. What is no longer in question is the partisan nature of Jennifer Brunner’s efforts to minimize the level of fairness and transparency in this election.”

Again, just to clarify: the ORP/McCain campaign is trying to sell the theory that:

-if the information for 200,000 voter registration mismatches (to database information on social security numbers and/or driver’s licenses)

-isn’t given to and made available from the 88 county boards of elections to the Ohio Republican Party for their potential public records requests, so that the ORP can then challenge every single one of those mismatches and cause each of those voters to cast a provisional ballot, which will only be verified and counted in a close election,

-then the possibility that potentially 200,000 votes (not provisional) that might be cast on 11/4/08 will be votes cast by people who are in fact ineligible to be Ohio voters is so great that properly matched Ohio voters should fear that their own eligible vote could be “wiped away by illegally cast ballots.”

Again, the U.S. Supreme Court decision didn’t rule on whether Brunner has in fact violated anything in HAVA.  It ruled that the Ohio Republican Party is not likely to prevail in a federal action on the question of whether it’s a viable complainant.

However, as the New York Times article states, as do other articles over time, a very large percentage of mismatches are due to government official and database error, not attempts to cast votes by otherwise ineligible voters.

Again, Joe the Plumber and Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted, both individuals who have voted Republican, would be subject to challenges based on voter mismatch (as would Ohio Democratic Party chair, Chris Redfern) and be forced to cast provisional ballots if the ORP’s position were to be extended.

Joe and John (and Chris) may be a lot of things, but I do feel confident that they all are eligible Ohio voters.  I think.

For more coverage: Ohio Daily Blog and Plunderbund.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:19 pm October 17th, 2008 in Courts, Elections, Jennifer Brunner, John McCain, Law, Ohio, Politics, Voting, WH2008 

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