Republican Lawyer Challenged One of Our Voters
We have spent the day driving homeless people to their polling place. There are not many left who have not voted, but we have a couple of dozen that we have taken. One of the voters was challenged by a Republican lawyer, because he did not have a current identification. The voter was in the poll book, but had lost his identification. I know that it is legal to challenge voters, but it just seems like such a bullying tactic. I mean the guy is homeless living in a shelter, and had his identification stolen. He is working on putting his life back together and some Republican lawyer in an inner city polling place attempts to disenfranchise this guy. It seems desperate and an extreme form of harassment tactic for someone to do this to an American citizen down on his luck.
Also, the Republican party went to court today to challenge our settlement last week with Jennifer Brunner over the counting of provisional ballots. They drew a conservative judge, and so our case is probably not settled as we had thought. We have a signed settlement with the other side, so I do not understand why the court is even hearing this case. Details to follow.
Brian Davis
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
2 comments:
Some questions...Was this lawyer a judge at the polling place or some busy body in line?
Gary and I went to the polls here in Toronto, Ohio and, because we haven't had the chance to change our address on my driver's license and his state ID we each took a piece of mail with us.
We had absolutely no problem with exercising our right to vote.
Also, Jefferson County used electronic voting machines today for the first time. ALSO, voters here had a choice in how to cast their vote....by machine OR by paper ballot.
When I was a judge last year in Cleveland Heights I felt that voters should have been given an option also. With only eleven machines shared by three wards it sure would have sped things up a bit especially when many elderly who were not technically savvy kept canceling out their votes due to the machines timing out.
Also, I remember a gentleman who came to the polling location who forgot his wallet. Rather than make him go home I asked him if he drove. He did, so I asked him if his vehicle registration was in his car. I used that as his identification since it contained the address of record and was issued by the State of Ohio.
K.I.S.S.
No, he was placed at the polling place by the Republican party to observe what was happening. Overall, it was pretty smooth for all of our voters. There were no lines, and only two of the people we drove had to vote by provisional ballot.
Brian Davis
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