Ohio Democrats said a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Friday will protect newly registered voters from
being disenfranchised on
Election Day.
The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered the state's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don't match records in other government databases.
"It was a means to target a group of voters and to push them into voting ballots that could be isolated later on, and picked off one-by-one with legal maneuvering, in the event of a close election," Brunner said to 10TV's John Fortney.
In a brief unsigned opinion, the justices said they were not commenting on whether Ohio is complying with a provision of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 that lays out requirements for verifying voter eligibility.
Instead, they said they were granting Brunner's request because it appears that the law does not allow private entities, like the Ohio GOP, to file suit to enforce the provision of the law at issue.
About 200,000 of 666,000 voters who have registered in Ohio since Jan. 1 have records that don't match. Brunner has said the discrepancies most likely stem from innocent clerical errors rather than fraud but has set up a verification plan.
"This unanimous ruling by the United States Supreme Court allows Ohio to move about the business of ensuring a free, fair, open and honest election without the threat of widespread voter suppression by the GOP," Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said in a statement.
Ohio Republicans said the ruling failed to address what they called Brunner's partisan interpretation of voting laws and will increase the potential for fraud on Nov. 4.
"If we have a close election in Ohio and there's any doubts, the failures will be laid right at her doorstep," Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett said.
Bennett said the high court didn't deal with the merits of the case.
"What they dealt with was a technicality on whether we had standing or not to bring the action," he said.
Bennett said an elected official, such as a prosecutor, could file a challenge but knew of no plans for anyone to do so.
"We want her to put out a directive to the counties on how to deal with this," Bennett said. "We don't want to impede anyone's right to vote."
Bennett said Brunner could have set up a system months ago to check the discrepancies and that her actions have left the potential for voter fraud.
Brunner said the court's decision would help ease confusion in the run-up to Election Day.
She said HAVA was clear that the mismatch lists were to be used to maintain the voter database, not to determine voter eligibility.
"We are very pleased that the court recognized that this was an illegal challenge on the part of the Republicans," she said.
She said the office would have found a way to comply, but there were risks that qualified voters would have been disqualified.
"I think it's an unfair tactic to subject voters to this kind of uncertainty and anxiety this close to such an important election," she said.
In court filings, the GOP has not produced any specific evidence of voting fraud, only unsubstantiated reports that voters from other states had cast fraudulent ballots during the early voting period.
McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said lower court rulings have clearly said the HAVA regulations require the secretary of state to match against the list, find where there's been fraud and inconsistencies and report them to counties.
"Why in the world would that not happen? We have the technology, the budget, the means and the manpower to make that happen. Do we really want to have to find out after the fact that we had counties that would have been decided one way or another because the secretary of state didn't bother doing the job the HAVA required?" Davis told reporters on a conference call. "I think the secretary of state ought to do her job," he added.
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