GOP wants to see registration lists
By Marc Kovac
About 200,000 voter registration forms contain information that does not match databases.
COLUMBUS — The Ohio Republican Party continued to criticize Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, on Friday for not releasing the names of voter registration mismatches — a listing they say will aid county boards in identifying fraudulent registrations and illegally cast ballots.
Republican Party Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine also has called for federal investigations into a security breach of the secretary of state’s Web site — which prompted that office to limit public access earlier in the week.
“I can’t help but wonder whether or not that is [the] latest excuse or whether there was a real security breach in the secretary of state’s office,” DeWine said, adding, “This is a federal election, and if this is a breach as Jennifer Brunner claims, then we need to investigate every angle. We need to investigate was it an internal breach or was it an external breach. We need to investigate, along with the highway patrol, along with the secretary of state’s office, the U.S. attorney’s office ... what information was compromised? How did they break in? And who was responsible and ultimately hold those people accountable.”
DeWine’s Friday press conference was the latest public commentary in an ongoing battle between Republicans and Brunner over potential voter registration and election fraud, amid reports of nonresidents and ineligible voters submitting multiple registrations or attempting to cast ballots.
Brunner has said about 200,000 of 660,000-plus voter registration forms submitted this year contain information that does not match motor vehicle or Social Security databases.
Those mismatches could be caused by transposed numbers in addresses, missing middle initials or other clerical errors. Regardless, the information should be made available to county elections officials to aid in their attempts to verify voters’ eligibility, DeWine said.
“The secretary of state needs to provide that information to the boards, and it needs to be provided in a useful and uniform format,” he said. “No. 2, the secretary needs to provide a directive that would instruct the boards of elections on what to do with this information so it is dealt with in a uniform fashion.”
Earlier this month, Brunner called on county elections boards to report any alleged voter or registration fraud and vowed to facilitate investigations and pursue prosecution as warranted.
But Brunner also has said safeguards were in place to ensure that only those residents who are eligible to cast ballots are allowed to do so.
And, though acknowledging news reports of alleged registration fraud, she has said few individuals in recent years have committed actual voter fraud.
But there have been instances of voter fraud already identified. In one case, at least five individuals from New York rented a home in the Columbus area, registered to vote and cast ballots, according to a Columbus Dispatch report.
The newspaper’s Alan Johnson and Mark Niquette reported Friday that 13 individuals who lived at the residence agreed to cancel their registrations and have their early ballots discarded.