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Oct
22
Last night, a cease-fire of sorts between the Ohio Republican Party and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner began after the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed without prejudice a voter registration lawsuit that had been filed by a GOP fundraiser (whom Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher said was connected to five of the seven Sup Court justices, all of whom are Republican).
Today, PolitickerOH reports the following development:
Wednesday morning two attorneys from the Ohio Republican Party spoke Attorney General Nancy Rogers for more than an hour and discussed possible resolutions to the voter-registration controversy, attorney general press secretary Jim Gravelle said.
The attorney general’s office represents Brunner in the case. The attorney general’s office is now moving to brief Brunner on what the ORP attorneys said.
“We are pleased with the initial discussions held Wednesday between the Attorney General’s office and attorneys for the Ohio Republican Party,” Brunner said in a statement. “We hope this signals a shift from litigation to resolving issues before they occur.”
I’m holding my breath though I’m not sure for how long, in part I agree with these portions of an Akron Beacon Journal editorial from Sunday:
Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett and Kevin DeWine, vice chairman, have done more than their fair share of fear mongering.
…
DeWine acknowledged that the mismatches are most likely due to discrepancies on records involving middle initials or to transposed numbers.
He was also forced to concede the fact that checking voter registrations is a county board responsibility and those boards are bipartisan.
…
For DeWine and his fellow party members, their arguments are undermined by the fact that the laws Brunner has attempted to interpret or enforce were passed by majority Republicans in the legislature. DeWine is a state representative from Fairborn.
If the laws are vague and hard to understand or they have loopholes, such as a window of days when newly registered voters were eligible to cast absentee ballots immediately, then Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for poorly crafted legislation.
DeWine must also be held responsible for continuously blurring the issues on voter fraud.
He continues to attack the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for its voter registration efforts, but DeWine knows there is a huge difference between collecting a bogus name on a petition and someone casting an illegal vote.
The ACORN registration sheets contain duplicate and false names like Jive Turkey and Mickey Mouse, but that’s what happens when you pay people for each name they collect.
But put your fears to rest. Jive Turkey is not going to cast a ballot this year. Neither will Mickey Mouse.
DeWine and the Ohio Republican Party have been gunning for Jennifer Brunner since the day she won in 2006. Sadly, their single-minded pursuit ends up impacting all voters in Ohio.
There have been no updates regarding the Hardin and Delaware county prosecutor-initiated investigations into voter registration during Golden Week.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:22 pm October 22nd, 2008 in Courts, Elections, Jennifer Brunner, Law, Nancy Rogers, Ohio, Politics, Republicans, Voting, WH2008
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3 Responses to “Update on Ohio voter registration challenges”
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Nancy Rogers was a mediation expert at Ohio State’s law school — this will certainly be a test of her skills in that regard.
Agreed – that’s an excellent observation. I also really trust her to tell us exactly how the parties behaved too – both sides.
Well, once again, I don’t believe their are “two sides.” I think Jennifer is doing her best to step through a minefield the GOP is setting for her while trying to protect voters. I’m afraid too many of our state media are playing the GOP’s game by trying to dig for things Jennifer is supposedly guilty of to offer “balance.” But on some issues, like the absentee ballot applications, she was in a no-win situation. I guarantee if the Democrats had sent out such applications the Republicans would be in court fighting to require her to reject them.
The real issue for me is that the state GOP is trying to throw as many monkey wrenches into the election system as possible, to create as much confusion and chaos as they can, and then trying to blame Jennifer for trying to make voting easier, tossing out the scary specter of “voter fraud,” which, according to the League of Woman Voters, was in the single digits in Ohio in the last decade. It’s hypocritical of them to scream that Jennifer is “partisan” whenever she doesn’t jump up and cater to their fears, given that their last Secretary of State was co-chair of the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign and openly stumped for Issue 1 while running the election. But it really is all about trying to damage her for 2010, in my opinion. They do voters no service in the process.