Gov. Strickland: VETO, VETO, VETO Voting Bill!!!

Fake Voting Reform Passes House

The State Representatives in a party line vote, passed a bogus "reform" of the voting system. This is purely an attempt to disenfranchise voters. We previously blogged about the Senate bill here, but the House managed to make the bill worse. We all have to urge the Governor to veto this fake reform bill. The bill was bad as it was originally drafted, but the House made it worse. The changes from the original bill include:

1. There is only one site per county in which early voting can take place. This will put into law long lines in many counties for the foreseeable future. On a couple of Sundays the line was a block long at the Board of Elections in Cleveland, and other cities had similar issues. Instead of addressing these problems, the state legislature is going to make long lines the standard.
   
2. A reduction in the power of the Secretary of State by limiting her ability to disqualify board appointments. The retaliation platform.
   
3. Restrictions on observers at early voting locations.
4. The other change was that they removed the piece of the law that would violate federal law by starting early voting 20 days out instead of stopping registration 60 days out. The 60 day registration deadline would have definitely been challenged by the Feds. This, however, effectively eliminates the golden week, which was great for homeless people.
   
5. Then there is one piece of happy reform in the law: the observers can greet the election workers at the polling location.
   

I understand the emergency nature of passing this law in the lame duck session so that observers will be able to say "Good Morning" to the election workers in the March elections, but I still think that the Governor needs to veto this law.

As stated before, here are the problems with the law:

1. Only 13,000 people took advantage of the golden week, and no one has said that there was any fraud during this week. They are once again fixing a problem that does not exist.
2. Since we have set up an illegal poll tax for homeless people who have to pay for identification in order to vote, golden week is the best option for homeless people who do not have a valid state identification.
   
3. The release of mismatch data will allow more and more challenges at the polling place. This causes anger and mistrust of the system and more lawsuits. Do we really want party officials in dark glasses and trench coats and lawyers singling people out and challenging a person's right to participate in democracy?
4. The social security and driver's license database were never intended or constructed to be a backup for the voting database. This is only going to cause problems and confusion and again will reduce confidence in the voting process in Ohio. (After 2004 and 2006 how much lower can it go?)
   
5. The bill is not bi-partisan and was crafted at the last minute to retaliate against one party for their gains during the last two statewide elections.
   

We need you to step forward, Governor and veto this horrible bill.

Brian Davis
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Appeals Court Strikes Down Our Victory

Some Voters in Jeopardy of Disenfranchisement

The U.S. Appeals Court in a surprising reversal of Judge Marbley's decision sent the provisional ballot case back to the Ohio Supreme Court. As the Dispatch article points out, this was decided by two Bush appointed judges and one Carter era appeals court judge. I do not understand why politics has paid such a large role in how we vote in Ohio. I also do not understand how the court could decide that our settlement with the State is ignored because two voters file a separate lawsuit in a different venue. Our case is exactly on point, and our settlement should be respected and honored. We fought this case for two years, and the case belongs in the federal courts because the Help America Vote Act established the provisional ballots in 2002. Here is the text from the 2002 Law:

Provisional Voting Requirements.--If an individual
declares thatsuch individual is a registered voter
 in the jurisdiction in which the individual desires
to vote and that the individual is eligible to vote
in an election for Federal office, but the name of
the individual does not appear on the official list
of eligible voters for the polling place or an election
official asserts that the individual is not eligible to
vote, such individual shall be permitted to cast a
provisional ballot...

and:
If the appropriate State or local election official
to whom the ballot or voter information is transmitted
under paragraph (3) determines that the individual is
eligible under State law to vote, the individual's
provisional ballot shall be counted as a vote in
that election in accordance with State law.

Since a federal law established provisional voting, it would make sense that the federal court can order how those votes are uniformly counted.

Here is Jennifer Brunner's statement from her website about this case:

"This litigation has already delayed the final certification of the November election. It is our hope that the Ohio Supreme Court will quickly affirm their previous clear guidance “to liberally construe election laws in favor of the right to vote,” so as not to disenfranchise approximately 1,000 Ohio voters with a hyper-technical interpretation of Ohio law."

Now, I do not know who is doing press for Brunner, but did they have to use the word "liberal" when referring to how the notoriously conservative Ohio Supreme Court should order the counting of provisional ballots. Couldn't they have used a better word? Is she just trying to bait them? I too hope that every voter is counted, but I would not say the word "liberal" or "liberally construe election law" in my sound byte. She needs a new press person.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

VICTORY!!

Judge Rules to Keep NEOCH Agreement in Place!!

Judge Algenon Marbley ruled on Friday against the two Republican challengers who sued to overturn the NEOCH settlement with the State of Ohio in the voting ID case. The federal judge made a few changes, but ordered the provisional ballots counted even if there was poll worker error. In dispute is a U.S. Congressional race in Central Ohio and two State House races, and how the provisional ballots in those races will be counted. NEOCH temporarily settled the case against Secretary of State Brunner and the state of Ohio before the election providing two directives backed by the court to standardize the counting of provisional ballots in all 88 counties. In the District 15 race between Republican Steve Stivers and Mary Jo Kilroy, the Democrat, there are only 500 votes separating the two with over 27,000 provisional ballots to count. The Republican voters, who sued after the election, do not want the 1,000 provisional ballots counted in which the poll worker did not complete the outside envelope correctly.

The only down side is that the Judge put off the counting until November 28 (the day after Thanksgiving) to start counting in order to give time to the U.S. Court of Appeals to rule. I am sure that the Appeals Court justices will love to rule on this case after a great Thanksgiving dinner. We trust the court to rule for allowing legitimate voters to cast a ballot. Imagine waiting in a long line at the drive-thru window at Wendy's, and you finally get up to the front of the line to put in your order. Then you drive around to the pay window, and they tell you, "Sorry, you will get no food today, because our order clerk took your order wrong." This is what the Republican operatives are asking for except in the most important thing a citizen is entrusted with: voting for president of the United States. "You did nothing wrong, but the person who took your ballot screwed up, and so you are out of luck for four years. Have a great day, and come again."

What judge in their right mind would side with people trying to disenfranchise voters? We shall see.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Voting Case Update II

Judge Keeps the Case in Federal Court

Federal Judge Algenon Marbley ruled this morning that he would maintain jurisdiction over the provisional ballot case filed by Republicans down in Columbus regarding the US Representative District 15 race (Stivers vs. Kilroy). The case involves our settlement of a case with Secretary of State Brunner and the uniform counting of provisional ballots. Judge Marbley has decided to keep the case in his court to avoid lawyers "venue shopping." This is a victory for Ohio voters. The bizarre aspect of this case, as we described in many posts over the last year, is that the Republican legislature babysat Brunner's office throughout this case. They were involved in the settlement, and if they had a concern should have raised it before we signed this agreement. Why are they standing on the side of disenfranchising legitimate voters who tried to cast a ballot, but were let down by the poll worker? The Republican legislature wrote the law on provisional ballots. They supervised the NEOCH vs. Brunner case for two years, and a Republican Taft drafted the original rules for homeless participation in voting when he was Secretary of State. We trust that this case will quickly be settled, and every legitimate voter can have their voted counted.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Kick the Can Down the Road

Settlement in the Voting ID Case: No Hanging Chads

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and the other groups suing to assure that those without identification would be able to vote entered into another temporary agreement for this election. We did not have enough time to set up a system in which a homeless person could go to a state agency and get free identification in the last week before the election. So, we did the next best thing: we were able to get an agreement on a uniform standard in counting the provisional ballots in Ohio. We will not have Hamilton County dismissing most of the provisional ballots while Madison County decides on their own strategy for counting ballots. After interviews of 20 Boards of Elections, our lawyers found wide disparity in the procedures for counting provisional ballots. There are still two outstanding issues which will be settled early next week, but otherwise the case will be kicked down the road until after the election. We did not drop the case, we compromised by receiving uniform standards.

The Secretary of State issued a directive to the local Boards of Elections under order from the federal court in Columbus. A person who became homeless in the last month will vote with a provisional ballot or those without identification will vote with a provisional ballot. This is not the best outcome, but at least we can be assured that those ballots will be counted. Unless the person votes in the wrong precinct on election day, they will have their ballot counted 10 days after the election. Every county will use the same standard for counting, and if there is a violation of the court order we can go back to federal court for relief.

I took two brothers down to court in Columbus on Thursday. Both recent veterans who found themselves homeless. Our plaintiff was a guy sleeping at Lakeside shelter who was waiting for his birth certificate and the money to get his identification. He had PTSD from some rough times in Baghdad in 2005-6, and wanted to vote on Election Day like every other citizen. He did not want to vote early or by mail. He wanted to go to a polling site as he had done in 2004 and cast his ballot for President. We could not assure that this veteran's ballot would be counted with all the disparity in counting provisional ballots. Because of the broad definition of "other government document" issued earlier this year by Secretary of State Brunner, and this settlement we know that his ballot will count.

If the legisltature does not take up some massive overhaul of the voting ID law, we may be back at the courthouse door. Right now, we got all that we could get. We are happy with the settlement, and our Iraq War veteran was happy with the results. We hope to have a smooth election, and we will not see the problems we saw in the 2004 election. It is Colorado or North Carolina's turn to mess up the voting process anyway.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Homeless People do Vote!!!

NEOCH Needs Help To Get Out the Vote!!

Remembering Stephanie Tubbs Jones and her constant push to protect the voting rights of low income individuals, NEOCH is working in an all out effort to get homeless people to vote. We need your help getting homeless people to participate in democracy. As you may have seen in many Ohio newspapers, the Secretary of State released rules on registering and voting on the same day. There are five days in which a person can register or change their address at the Board of Elections office and then immediately ask for an absentee ballot and vote. Those votes are counted later in November as part of the presidential election. We are looking for help transporting homeless people to the polling places. We need vans and van drivers to volunteer September 30, October 1, October 2, October 3 and Monday October 6 to help with getting homeless people to vote. If you can volunteer on any of these days (8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), please call Brian Davis at NEOCH at 432-0540 or e-mail at neoch [--at--] neoch [dot] org.

Most homeless people get registered to vote or change their address at the shelters. With the horrible ID provisions on election day, we are trying to encourage people to vote early. We understand that there is a great fondness for going into the polling place on one day when everyone else is voting, but this is becoming increasingly difficult. We need to demonstrate that homeless people care and will show up to vote. On election day, we have to provide transportation all over the County and even the region. During the five day overlap, we can provide transportation to one central point in Downtown Cleveland. Please volunteer to help expand democracy.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.