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Akron
Beacon Journal...
Broken at the ballot
If Ohio doesn’t repair its problems with provisional voting, it invites
a whopper of a legal fight in a close election
Listen to Republicans in the Ohio House, and the complexities of
repairing the state’s elections machinery, about to be tested again in
2012, pale in comparison to a single issue: voter fraud. In recent
weeks, the House rushed passage of a bill that would require voters to
present a photo ID on Election Day, erecting a barrier to the ballot
box when episodes of fraud, let alone prosecutions, are extremely rare.
A comprehensive approach was advanced by Jon Husted, the secretary of
state and a Republican. To his credit, he opposes the photo ID
requirement. Still, Husted fails to deal directly with the No. 1
problem identified by voting experts: Ohio’s heavy use of provisional
ballots. He takes the path of seeking to reduce provisional ballots by
improving voter registration, including the use of online registration.
That’s not enough. Former secretary of state Ken Blackwell quipped
about election results ‘’within the margin of litigation.’’ These days,
it’s no joke.
In a Hamilton County judicial race, Husted and the local board of
elections have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court an order by a panel
of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court ruled that
provisional ballots cast in the wrong precincts due to pollworker error
should be counted. John Williams, the Republican in the juvenile court
race, leads by 23 votes. In dispute are about 150 ballots.
Drawing from an elections reform bill that stalled last year, Democrats
in the Ohio House are focusing on the core issue, one that could cause
an electoral meltdown: lack of uniformity in counting provisional
ballots. Such ballots are used when questions arise on Election Day.
The ballots are counted later, after a detailed examination. But under
Ohio law, if cast in the wrong precinct, they are not to be counted at
all.
The question raised in the Hamilton County suit, and one that would be
resolved by a bill introduced this week by state Rep. Alicia Reece of
Cincinnati, is what happens when a voter is steered to the wrong
precinct by a pollworker. As it is, sometimes the ballots are counted,
sometimes not. Each board decides, an invitation to lawsuits over equal
protection.
Reece advocates using a checklist for pollworkers to identify the
correct precinct. If the checklist is in error, or hasn’t been
followed, the provisional ballot would be remade and counted, the list
evidence the mistake wasn’t the voter’s. Use of the checklist would be
standard across the state.
Reece should be commended for challenging her colleagues to tackle the
most pressing problem in Ohio’s elections system. There is time to make
the fix — and approve the Husted plan — in time for next year’s
presidential election. That is, if needless distractions over photo IDs
do not get in the way.
Read it at the Akron Beacon Journal
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