In a victory for voting rights and common sense, Marion County, Indiana has agreed that 200 Indiana residents will not be blocked from the polls just because they registered using a slightly-different registration form from previous election cycles.
As we reported yesterday, Project Vote filed an emergency lawsuit against Secretary of State Todd Rokita and the Marion County Board of Elections on behalf of Drametra Brown, an Indianapolis nursing assistant whose registration was rejected because she filled out a 2004 registration form. The 2004 was slightly but not substantially different from the 2008 form, but Marion County had said they could not accept it because it lacked two small (and redundant) check boxes.
In a hearing before a judge yesterday afternoon in Indianapolis, the Marion County board agreed to allow Drametra and the other registrants who correctly submitted their registrations on an older form to vote today. There’s no time to get them on the official rolls, so they will cast provisional ballots, but by court order all of these ballots will be counted.
