The GOP is making a play for Ohio involving the mass disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of new voters, the vast majority of which are Democrats, in an effort to steal Ohio for McSame.
The key to the effort? Yesterday’s 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the favor of the Ohio GOP:
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered Ohio’s secretary of state to establish a system to verify hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters by Friday.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner also has to make the eligibility information available to all 88 county election boards and use government records to check for voter registration fraud.
Nine of the 16 members of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with an opinion that upheld a lower court’s ruling in the lawsuit filed by the Ohio Republican Party against Brunner.
“It is imperative that voters not be disenfranchised because of federal government red tape, misstated technical information or glitches in databases beyond the control of voters or the Secretary of State,” said Brunner, a Democrat, after the ruling.
“That is why we will work with the federal court, even though we believe that the order goes beyond the requirements of (the Help American Vote Act).”
The long-running legal battle emerged from allegations of registration fraud in the crucial battleground state, namely accusing Brunner’s office of “turning off” its process for the verification of voter registration while allowing Ohioans to cast ballots on the same day that they registered.
In other words the courts have now put the burden of proof for verifying Ohio’s early voting process on the Secretary of State.
Brunner must now come up with a plan by Friday to verify potentially six hundred thousand plus new voters, and then execute the plan before Election Day, or the GOP will certainly assure these voters will not be allowed to vote.
Worse, the decision in the favor of the GOP could be the opening they need to attack Democratic registrations in other battleground states. Potentially, this could be the start of a wave of mass disenfranchisement of millions of traditionally Democratic votes.
How does this play out? The GOP can argue that there’s no way that Brunner can satisfactorily vet two-thirds of a million voters in 18 days, and demand that all new voter registrations in Ohio be thrown out.
Worse, the GOP could demand that ALL voters in the state of Ohio had to meet the tenets of Brunner’s plan. While this would be a political nightmare for both sides, the true “nuclear option” in this case, what other choice does McSame have to win Ohio this year?
Would the GOP dare pull the trigger on this, knowing it could go all the way to the Supreme Court?
What precedent for voter registration assurances could the courts set from this case that could have far reaching effects for decades?
Is McSame willing to launch this attack, knowing that the political backlash could rip the country apart?
Ohio is potentially days away from being a hurricane that might wipe out the Democratic realignment. We’ve come far, but our work to preserve our democracy is just beginning.
I’m not voting rights expert, but I can smell this mountain of bullshit a mile away, and the GOP at this point has nothing left to lose. All indications are they will face a Democratic majority in the House, Senate, and in the White House, and possibly face a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.
Anything left they can try to do in order to prevent this landslide will be tried. Calling into question the legitimacy of millions of Democratic voters is not something I would bet against. Not this GOP.
They will run with this all the way to the top in order to try to win. Double down, go for broke, play the nuclear option. We’ve seen eight years of this. They have one more Hail Mary left.
It must be prevented.
Update [2008-10-15 17:55:44 by Zandar1]: Brunner’s response is pretty depressing.
More than 200,000 Ohioans who registered to vote this year for the first time or updated their voting information since Jan. 1 could be affected by the latest court ruling requiring the state to set up a new registration verification system by Friday, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said.
Brunner said she would comply with the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling late Tuesday but said she is deeply concerned that the decision is a veiled attempt at disenfranchising voters.
The court’s 9-6 opinion, written by Judge Jeffrey Sutton, suggested that voters whose driver’s license number or Social Security number does not exactly match those found on databases maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or Social Security Administration could be required to use provisional ballots instead of conventional ones.
“The thing that concerns me is that Judge Sutton indicated that these mismatched names could be subjected to provisional voting and nowhere in [Help America Vote Act] is that the case. The Help America Vote Act is really not meant to be used to disenfranchise or to help determine voter eligibility,” Brunner said in an interview today.
“Essentially that provision of HAVA is basically supposed to maintain voter registration databases,” she said. “It is not for determining voter eligibility. The interpretation that seems to be coming from at least that particular judge takes HAVA and uses it as a means to exclude voters from a regular ballot. That is a concern.”
Considering Kerry lost Ohio in 2004 by far less of a margin, the GOP plan to disenfranchise 200,000 voters may be enough to give them Ohio, particularly combined with other voter suppression techniques.
This may just be the beginning. The battle cry of “Democratic Voter Fraud” will be raised across the nation while the GOP works to cheat millions out of their votes. Their attempts have been documented before in 2000 and 2004. We know its coming. They may try to turn every state into Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004. It’s the last chance the GOP has to avoid being booted out of office, and they know it. They face the wilderness for a very long time…unless they steal yet another election.
Count on them trying their damnedest to steal another one with whatever means necessary.
