Court overrules mandate to verify voters

By Joe Milicia

The secretary won’t have to provide names of newly registered voters.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided Friday with Ohio’s top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over new voter registrations but left an opening for another lawsuit.

The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Democrat, to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.

Brunner faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver’s license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don’t match records in other government databases.

In a brief unsigned opinion, the justices said they were not commenting on whether Ohio is complying with a provision of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 that lays out requirements for verifying voter eligibility. Instead, they said they were granting Brunner’s request because it appears that the law does not allow private entities, like the Ohio GOP, to file suit to enforce the provision of the law at issue.

Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett said the high court didn’t deal with the merits of the case.

“What they dealt with was a technicality on whether we had standing or not to bring the action,” he said.

Bennett said an elected official, such as a prosecutor, could file a challenge but knew of no plans for anyone to do so.

“We want her to put out a directive to the counties on how to deal with this,” Bennett said. “We don’t want to impede anyone’s right to vote.”

About 200,000 of 666,000 voters who have registered in Ohio since Jan. 1 have records that don’t match. Brunner has said the discrepancies most likely stem from innocent clerical errors rather than fraud but has set up a verification plan.

Ohio Democrats said the ruling will keep newly registered voters from being disenfranchised on Election Day.

“This unanimous ruling by the United States Supreme Court allows Ohio to move about the business of ensuring a free, fair, open and honest election without the threat of widespread voter suppression by the GOP,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said in a statement.

Ohio Republicans said the ruling failed to address what they called Brunner’s partisan interpretation of voting laws and will increase the potential for fraud on Nov. 4.

“If we have a close election in Ohio and there’s any doubts, the failures will be laid right at her doorstep,” Bennett said.

Bennett said Brunner could have set up a system months ago to check the discrepancies and that her actions have left the potential for voter fraud.

Brunner said the court’s decision would help ease confusion in the run-up to Election Day.

She said HAVA was clear that the mismatch lists were to be used to maintain the voter database, not to determine voter eligibility.

“We are very pleased that the court recognized that this was an illegal challenge on the part of the Republicans,” she said.

She said the office would have found a way to comply, but there were risks that qualified voters would have been disqualified.

“I think it’s an unfair tactic to subject voters to this kind of uncertainty and anxiety this close to such an important election,” she said.

In court filings, the GOP has not produced any specific evidence of voting fraud, only unsubstantiated reports that voters from other states had cast fraudulent ballots during the early voting period.