Election Day a test for Ohio’s secretary of state

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s top elections official campaigned on one central promise: restoring trust in the state’s elections system for the 2008 presidential contest.

Today’s election could largely vindicate Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. Or it could further embolden the Democrat’s GOP critics, who haven’t missed an opportunity to question the motives behind her decisions.

Brunner promised to change the policies of Republican Ken Blackwell, who presided over a 2004 Ohio election plagued by long lines, a shortage of voting machines and still persistent conspiracy theories. She also pledged to remove the perception of partisanship that Blackwell stoked when he promoted a ban on gay marriage and served as honorary co-chairman of President Bush’s re-election campaign.

The success or failure of today’s election — the length of lines, the ability to handle a historic turnout, the performance of equipment — will serve as the verdict on Brunner’s policies. The arguments about political motives are likely to spill over into the weeks and months following the election.

Brunner has mandated a more efficient allocation of voting machines. She’s tried to make sure poll workers are better informed about voting procedures and less likely to make errors. Having failed to convince skeptical state lawmakers to fund the scrapping of touch-screen voting machines, Brunner has required counties to make paper ballots available to voters who want them.

As for becoming the antithesis of Blackwell, Brunner has faced an unwavering barrage of criticism from a Republican Party that took note of her campaign promises.

She once raised the potential of flying under the radar of controversy, saying if she is able to remain a largely anonymous successor to Blackwell it would signal that she’s doing her job. But Brunner has been far from nameless.

The GOP has already released a Web ad that chronicles the many mentions of Brunner’s name in state and national media.

Brunner told county boards of election to allow new voters to register and cast a ballot on the same day during a weeklong period in early October. Republicans argued the window made it too easy to commit voter fraud.

The GOP lost legal challenges against the overlap period, but has requested information on voters who took advantage of the window that could be used in a postelection challenge if the results are close.

Brunner has also refused to release the names of about 200,000 newly registered voters whose driver’s license and Social Security numbers don’t match information in government databases. The GOP has said she’s concealing fraud, while Brunner has said the release of the mismatches would expose voters to last-minute challenges that could disenfranchise them. She’s said that the mismatches are largely a result of clerical errors.

The mismatches could also figure into any GOP postelection challenges.