Victory for Voters in Ohio

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/09/05/victory-for-voters-in-ohio/

Legislation & Politics, In the States

Sep 5

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Victory for Voters in Ohio

For the second time in less than a week, a federal judge tossed out a state’s new restrictive voter registration rules because they had a chilling effect on registration drives.

The fear of civil or criminal penalties in Ohio, where the latest case was decided, and in Florida, had halted most voter registration drives by nonpartisan groups that reach out to newly eligible voters, minority communities, low-income groups and others.

The latest action came in Ohio Sept. 1, when U.S. District Judge Kathleen O’Malley blocked key parts of a new election law passed earlier this year by the Republican-controlled legislature she wrote, “are inconsistent with and undermine the purpose of the National Voting Rights Act.”

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who issued the interpretations of the voter registration portions of the new election law, also is the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio.

The Ohio law threatened registration workers with felony penalties for minor mistakes in complying with the law. Under the overturned law, a person who registers another voter—for example a union volunteer—was required to personally submit that card to the election office. Typically, volunteers for a group sponsoring a registration drive would turn the forms into the group, which would submit them in bulk.

O’Malley noted Ohio was the only state to require “direct return” and that it “clearly chills” voter registration efforts.

The Akron Beacon Journal reported O’Malley asked the lawyers representing Blackwell’s office about several possible violations.

“If I get a card and give it to my daughter and she fills it out and I give it to my secretary to mail, have I violated the law?” O’Malley queried. Lawyers replied that she would have because she did not mail it back herself.

The judge also noted how volunteers for the League of Women Voters and other groups routinely attend naturalization ceremonies in the federal courthouse where new U.S. citizens are sworn in, so they can register them to vote afterward. “These ladies are probably committing criminal acts downstairs as we speak,” O’Malley said.

The judge also blocked two other portions of the law relating to those who receive “compensation” for registering voters—requiring them to register online with the secretary of state’s office and supply the names and addresses of their employers.

FULL story at link above.

[Selteri]

1. Seeing as I'm living in Ohio

I have no faith in the voting system and fully expect 2006 to be such a total sham as Blackwell wins by some miracle and chaos erupts at the rate things are going now.