Massive voting fight appealed to Supreme Court

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step into a high-stakes fight over 200,000 Ohio voters' registrations, the AP and the New York Times report.

This battle, building for the past week, has become the ominous sequel to Ohio's 2004 voting controversies. Brunner says thousands of people could lose their votes. Republicans say she hasn't done her part to test the registrations for fraud. (See Brunner's press release on the case and the GOP's statement.)

Here's the problem. A 2002 federal law says states have to match new voter registrations and changes of address with state driver's license records. But what happens when there's no match? The law doesn't say. Neither has Brunner or her predecessor. Some Ohio counties double-check registrations that do not match up, some don't.

Republicans sued, and got the federal courts to order Brunner to give the counties an easier-to-use list of mismatches. They point to small numbers of duplicate registrations filed by ACORN to say the 200,000 mismatches need serious vetting. But they concede there are lots of reasons the records might not match, such as voters or data-entry workers messing up one digit in a license number.

What happens next, we don't know. Brunner says she doesn't want these voters to have to use provisional ballots -- which get scrutinized after Election Day and fought over if the election is close. (About one in five provisional votes are usually rejected.) A top Republican suggests that having all 200,000 people vote provisionally isn't a bad idea. But that's a number so big, it could throw any half-way close election result into the courts. (Bush won Ohio by 120,000 votes in 2004; 150,000 provisional ballots were cast then.)

Brunner will issue a directive soon, and the Republicans may well take that to court too. The Republicans will shout "voter fraud," the Democrats "vote suppression," and we're in for a battle as intense as 2004's over who gets to have their vote counted.

That year, Republicans filed mass challenges to voters' eligibility in several counties (they were struck down by a judge). But this year's deadline for filing direct challenges passed yesterday. Instead, we have this lawsuit, which makes the county boards' jobs much more complicated less than three weeks before Election Day.

This may make voting harder for many people who've either registered to vote or changed their registration this year. If it does, I'll write about what you can to do protect your vote.

Update, Fri. 10/17: Dahlia Lithwick of Slate argues that the Republican attacks on ACORN are intended to build support for efforts to disenfranchise voters.

(Caption: Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner at the City Club of Cleveland on Oct. 8.)

The ACORN hearing

Christopher Barkley walks to the microphone, wearing a Domino's Pizza uniform and a doo-rag. He's sworn in, and tells the board of elections why he registered to vote 12 times.

"I'd be sitting down in Public Square, reading my book," says Barkley, who was homeless this summer. "People asked me, 'Can you sign these papers?' I said, 'No, I'm already registered.'" They asked him to sign anyway: "I'm trying to hold onto a job," they said. Being a "kind-hearted person," Barkley says, he signed.

Freddie Johnson leaves his black Indians cap on his chair and goes to the mike. He's 19, tiny in a huge sweatshirt. He sells cell phones from a kiosk in Tower City. When he'd wait for the bus in Public Square after work this summer, he says, ACORN workers would approach him. When he said he was registered, they'd "come up with a sob story" and say "it's cool to sign again, because I need a signature, because they get paid by signature." He filled out 48 cards with the same address. Sometimes the workers gave him a cigarette or a dollar.

Luren Dickinson of Shaker Heights, a bespecatcled guy in a suit, testifies he keeps getting board of elections mailings at his house, sent to people who don't live at his address. They're using his house number for false registrations. One guy, Darnell Nash, registered at Dickinson's address and had his registration cancelled when Dickinson complained. But then, Nash came into the elections office, registered again at Dickinson's address, and cast an early ballot. The board votes to void his new registration and ballot. The sheriff will be looking for Nash soon. {*See update below.}

The board of elections votes to ask the county sheriff and prosecutor to investigate the duplicate registration cases. It's going to be a national story. Fox News is covering the meeting. Republicans, including the McCain campaign, are portraying ACORN as a criminal organization.

Let's hope the national reporters keep the story in perspective.

"It's not voter fraud -- people are not multiply voting," said Jane Platten, Cuyahoga County's elections director. "We have safety nets in place that do not allow a person to vote multiple times." Her staff flagged Barkley and Johnson's names during their weekly searches for duplicate registrations.

This year, the elections staff has found 50 to 60 duplicate names out of 71,000 cards submitted by ACORN. Also, they send a mailing to every newly registered (or registration-changing) voter. Of those 71,000 registrations, 3,550 people couldn't be located. They'll have to vote on provisional ballots, which get scrutinized after Election Day to see if the voter is eligible. That's a 5 percent bad-card rate. I asked Platten how that compares to the rate of bad cards among non-ACORN registrations. She said she'd find out and get back to me.

After the meeting, ACORN staffers passed out a folder full of defenses, but their argument that they have a good quality control system was laughably weak. They said they called Freddie Johnson multiple times to verify his information was accurate. Sure, they called him a lot -- because they had 48 cards from him to verify!

The Republican caricatures of ACORN are unfair -- the group has registered hundreds of thousands to vote, and they sounded alarms about the foreclosure crisis long before it wounded the entire economy. But they've got to figure out how to motivate their low-income workers without accidentally giving them reason to cheat, and they've got to check their cards better for problems. They could learn from groups like the Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition, which kept such a thorough database of who they registered in 2004, they used it to prove the county's voter rolls were flawed.

The real effect of ACORN's mistakes on the voting rolls will probably be small. But if Obama wins Ohio in anything less than a landslide, I'm afraid these stories will lead to lots of right-wing stolen-election conspiracy theories -- reverse images of the left's allegations about 2004. I could also see the Republican Party using ACORN mistakes to justify mass challenges to new voters' eligibility. The deadline for challenges is this week.

(Caption: Christopher Barkley testifies at the board of elections meeting.)

Update, Tue. 10/14: An ACORN staffer defends the group's system here, saying they don't pay by the signature. Fox News ran this extremely misleading report claiming there are 4,700 "phony" registrations in Greater Cleveland. For a better sense of proportion, see the Plain Dealer report and editorial.

*Update, Thu., 6/4/09: Darnell Nash was indicted on voting fraud charges. See this new post.

(The original version of this post said Nash's case apparently didn't involve ACORN -- but the prosecutor's office now says it did.)

Fight brewing over voter registration

Don't get too alarmed about this New York Times story today ("States' Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal"). For news about voter rolls in Ohio, read this Columbus Dispatch piece instead ("GOP, Brunner spar over voter data").

The Times story sounds scary, but is very confusing. The story tries to cover two very different concerns about voting rolls: how to verify brand-new registrations, and when to delete really old, inactive registrations. In Ohio, the fight is about the new voters.

Republicans have sued Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, claiming she isn't matching new registrations with the state driver's license database or, if that info doesn't match, social security info. Brunner says she is doing it.

In fact, the Social Security Administration, nudged by the New York Times, is concerned that Ohio and other states are checking registrations against social security info too often. The NYT suggests this could mean the states aren't looking their records first and using only social security info, which could incorrectly identify some registrations as suspect. Not so, Brunner says: the state's voting and driving databases are hooked up electronically.

Brunner says she's worried the Republicans are really suing to use mismatched registrations to challenge voters' eligibility. This could become a big issue, or a non-issue, in the next week.

Update, Fri. 10/10: The judge ruled that Brunner has to turn over lists of the new registrations that don't match state and federal records to county election officials. See the Dispatch story here and the Plain Dealer story here.

Secretary of State Brunner speaks at City Club

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner spoke at the City Club of Cleveland today, telling the audience what she's done to improve the state's voting system and make sure Ohio isn't a "pariah" among states after the election is over.

She's banned "sleepovers," some poll workers' old habit of taking voting machines home with them the weekend before the election. She'd learned 23 Ohio counties were still allowing it, as a way to help transport the machines to the polls. "Yeah. You can close your jaws now," Brunner told the shocked audience. Sleepovers earned Ohio a lot of mockery this year, including a mention on the NPR comedy game show "Whad'Ya Know?"

She rolled out the sleepover ban as part of the state's new "best practices" for voting security, from ways to keep vote-counting computer servers secure to how to safely transport ballots, voting machines, poll books and memory cards.

Brunner, an opponent of touchscreen voting systems, still has to help 53 Ohio counties use them in November. She promised rigorous testing of the systems.

(Hopefully it will be enough to relieve fans of The Simpsons, who'll be treated to a voting joke in an upcoming episode: Homer tries to vote for Obama, then makes a crack about Ohio as the voting machine eats him. Tragically, this clip is no longer on YouTube.)

In December, Brunner cast the tie-breaking vote to replace Cuyahoga County's touchscreens with paper ballots. "I'm sorry to say I was not able to fight hard enough or long enough to pay for your change in Cuyahoga County," she said (meaning she couldn't get the Republican legislature to fund it). She thanked the county commissioners for footing the $13.4 million bill.

Brunner did a Sarah Palin imitation as part of a joke about her successful fight to preserve a week, Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, when Ohioans could register to vote and cast an early ballot at the same time. Can Ohioans do that? she asked rhetorically. "I can answer it two ways: 'You betcha!'" -- and she winked, like Palin in last week's debate -- "and 'Yes We Can!'" -- imitating Obama and his favorite slogan.

After the talk, I asked if she's seen any early signs of whether there will be mass voter challenges in Ohio, as there were in 2004. She mentioned a new lawsuit by the state Republican Party over people registered with incorrect driver's license numbers or social security numbers. She suggested it might be a prelude to challenges, which can be filed up until Oct. 16.

Protect your vote: check your registration

Here is the best way you can protect your vote between now and Monday: check your voter registration with your county Board of Elections and correct any errors. Here's the web page where Cuyahoga County voters can check their info.

Definitely check if you didn't get a mailing from the Board of Elections in September, if you've moved recently, or if you haven't voted in several years.

If you see a mistake or an outdated address, download a registration form here and mail it today or drive it down to the Board of Elections by Monday. (Registration cards must be received by Monday, so if you fill one out this weekend or Monday, I suggest delivering it rather than mailing it.) Cuyahoga's elections office, at E. 30th and Euclid, is open this weekend. Hours and parking info are here.

Doing this protects you from having to vote on a provisional ballot on Election Day and from the possibility that someone could challenge your eligibility to vote before the election.

Early voting has started. Between now and Nov. 4, you can vote on an absentee ballot by mail or at your county Board of Elections. Until Monday, you can register and vote at the same time. Local elections officials are recommending people vote by mail, to avoid possible lines on Election Day -- just be sure to fill out the forms exactly, so your mail-in ballot can't be challenged.