Great news on the fair elections front:
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court sided Friday with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.
The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, 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.
A bit of background: Republicans sued Brunner demanding that she establish a system which would allow for the strict "matching" of newly registered voters (those who registered since January 1, 2008) to government records. In other words, Republicans demanded that Brunner set up a framework whereby local election boards could force newly registered voters to vote provisionally based solely on the fact that the information they provide at the polling place does not exactly match the information in government databases.
Provisional ballots are essentially "maybe" ballots. They are counted if and only if eligibility is proven at some later date. That makes sense, but the process in verifying eligibility can be cumbersome (as you can see here) and can be a turnoff for legitimate voters.
There were many arguments raised against the GOP challenge, among them, an argument that the GOP waited far too late in the game to raise their claims (because sitting on your ass for years and then raising the argument a month before the election seems totally fair), that the GOP didn't have the right to bring raise the claim in the first place, and that the requested action was not required under federal law. It should be emphasized that the Supreme Court's decision today relates only to the narrow procedural question of whether the GOP had standing--or the right--to bring its lawsuit.
But hey, we'll take a victory on any grounds when election fairness is at stake.
So why was the GOP's plan do odious? The challenge would affect about 1 in 3 newly registered voters--that is, voters who registered since January 1st of this year.
Had Joe the Plumber been a newly registered voter, the GOP plan would prohibit him from voting in a standard fashion at the polls:
In a case that has now gone to the Supreme Court for review, Republicans in Ohio are challenging the registrations of all new voters whose names and other information do not exactly match those in government databases. It turns out that one of the present Ohio voters who could have fallen into this category is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher - or is it Worzelbacher? - otherwise known as Joe the Plumber.
The man John McCain lionised in Wednesday night's debate has since had every aspect of his life scrutinized by the media. They've uncovered some contradictory facts, to say the least: He's not really a plumber, he probably wouldn't pay more taxes under Obama if he bought his business, and he hasn't actually paid some of the taxes he already owes. He's also registered under a different name.
The New York Times politics blog today included the following piece of information:
Mr. Wurzelbacher is registered to vote in Lucas County under the name Samuel Joseph Worzelbacher.
"We have his named spelled W-O, instead of W-U," Linda Howe, executive director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, said in a telephone interview. "Handwriting is sometimes hard to read. He has never corrected it in his registration card."
The records, she said, showed he voted Republican in the March primary.
[...] The magnitude of the number—like the glitch in Joe the Plumber's registration—prove the fallibility of a system in which sloppy handwriting is being used to deny people their most basic democratic rights.
Voters shouldn't have obstacles created for them when they try to vote just because of beauracratic bungling. Democrats recognize that. But Republicans, who are desparate to keep voters away from the polls lest they should be held accountable for their actions, are hellbent on creating a wide array of such obstacles--some of them insurmountable. Today, though, one such attempt at voter suppression has failed. So while we continue to keep an eye on the tactics that will be used over the next several weeks to disenfranchise voters, let us take a moment and celebrate that, for today, one GOP suppression tactic in Ohio bites the dust.
See the discussion on this topic in StuHunter's diary here. here