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Republican Party protests too much
By Steve Hoffman
Beacon Journal editorial writer
Published on Thursday, Sep 18, 2008
The political stakes are high this year in Ohio, and not just because the presidential race could be decided by the state's swing voters. Also contributing to the charged atmosphere are races that will determine whether Democrats take control of the Ohio House, giving Gov. Ted Strickland's agenda a boost.
Several U.S. House races will influence the balance of power in Washington.
So it is hardly surprising that some skirmishing has taken place between Republicans and Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's secretary of state, chief elections official and Democrat. Last week, full-scale warfare commenced.
The underlying issue is early, no-fault absentee voting. This will be the first presidential election in which Ohio voters can request an absentee ballot without specifying a reason. Elections boards must make ballots available 35 days before Election Day. Both sides are hoping to lock down their supporters early.
One dispute between Brunner and the GOP involves applications for absentee ballots mailed by the McCain campaign to more than 1 million Ohio voters. Thousands of the forms have been rejected.
What happened is that the McCain campaign included a box to check next to a statement that the voter is a qualified elector. (Brunner's office uses a form on which voters are required to sign a statement affirming they are qualified to cast a ballot.)
Republicans are screaming about a Brunner advisory to elections boards that the McCain forms must be rejected if the box is not checked, on the basis that Ohio law requires an absentee voter to affirm in some way his or her status as a qualified elector.
Republicans are charging Brunner with ''voter suppression.'' Ironically, this is the same Ohio Republican Party that challenged thousands of voters in 2004 because mailings it sent were returned as undeliverable.
In Summit County alone, the registrations of more than 900 voters were challenged. Simple errors, not fraud, were uncovered during hearings, and all the challenges dropped, every one.
Then, Republicans in control of the state legislature passed a law to allow voters to be challenged and their registrations canceled based solely on undeliverable 60-day Election Day notices. Boards across the state are required to send the notices to all voters.
(This led to yet another fight between Brunner and the GOP, Brunner telling elections boards that voters must be given a hearing before their registration is affected and that undeliverable mail, by itself, can't be used as the basis to uphold a challenge.)
On the McCain campaign forms, Brunner offered a compromise. Her office is willing to contact those whose applications have been rejected and provide them with a computer code that would allow them to access a secure Web site, provide the necessary information and get an absentee ballot.
While that might be somewhat tricky to some voters, many could be expected to be quite facile at using the Internet. At the least, Brunner's suggestion is a step toward solving a problem. Republicans, meanwhile, would prefer that bipartisan elections boards contact by mail those whose applications have been rejected.
Kevin DeWine, the Republican state party deputy director, said ''the very last thing in the world'' he would like to see would be for Brunner to be responsible for contacting voters whose applications were rejected. Fine. The GOP's charges of voter suppression are hypocritical and appear aimed more at dirtying up Brunner for her re-election campaign in 2010 than anything else.
Republicans also went over the edge with a lawsuit, filed last week in the Ohio Supreme Court, that seeks to overturn a Brunner directive dealing with a tricky overlap period created by other changes in Ohio election law crafted by the Republican-controlled legislature. In short, a 30-day voter registration deadline conflicts with the 35-day deadline for elections boards to provide absentee ballots at board headquarters or satellite offices.
Brunner advised that new voters be allowed to register and get an absentee ballot the same day, following past practice. Republicans, who had not raised objections before, suddenly screamed about the creation of an ''illegal loophole.'' They argue voters must be registered for 30 days before getting an absentee ballot, in effect denying access to early voting to those trying to register in the final days.
With opinion polls showing party identification tilting in favor of Democrats, which could lead to a rush of new voters who might want to beat the rush on Election Day by voting early, the charge of ''voter suppression'' made in the case of the McCain absentee ballot applications begins to fall apart.
Brunner may be a partisan. She has taken questionable stands at times, especially demotions and dismissals of election officials who appeared to disagree with her on touch-screen voting.
Still, her actions on absentee ballots don't merit the over-the-top reaction from Republicans, which erodes voters' confidence in the election system.
Hoffman is a Beacon Journal editorial writer. He can be reached at 330-996-3740 or e-mailed at slhoffman@thebeaconjournal.com.
The political stakes are high this year in Ohio, and not just because the presidential race could be decided by the state's swing voters. Also contributing to the charged atmosphere are races that will determine whether Democrats take control of the Ohio House, giving Gov. Ted Strickland's agenda a boost.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Posted 09:38 AM, 09/18/2008
Why is it that Republicans are always coming down on the side of trying to disenfranchise voters? Shouldn't they be encouraging citizens to participate and exercising their rights?
Akron, OH
Posted 05:15 PM, 09/20/2008
Since the Democrats can't win the election honestly, they will steal it anyway they can! It is not American to take away the right to vote. Then again, the Democrats have never been concerned about protecting the American Way!
Posted 10:07 PM, 09/23/2008
It seems that Republicans are always complaining about cheating on elections. Always long on talk but short on proof. The only stealing of elections is Republican interference with valid registered voters trying to exercise their rights as citizens.
