6th Circuit's En Banc In Ohio

The 6th Circuit's en banc ruling yesterday upholding a st...forget it. They  did what, Rick Hasen?

A majority of the en banc court has reinstated a TRO, which will require the Ohio Secretary of State to send along to county elections boards those names that are a "mismatch" between voter registration and Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle records. The TRO does not require, and the en banc court majority emphasizes, that a county board is not required upon hearing of the mismatch to remove eligible voters from the rolls. But the court does suggest (on page 9 of the pdf) that it would be the basis for not counting absentee ballots of voters flagged as a mismatch barring further investigation by the board. There may also be some boards that could try to require mismatched voters voting in person to cast provisional ballots. And it also appears that to the extent the mismatch lists are public, it will provide the potential basis for challenges by the ORP on election day (though I believe it is now harder to mount such challenges in Ohio than it was in 2004, when the ORP threatened to make 35,000 challenges at the polls.

Ok, pay attention. This is important.

Mickey Mouse can register, right, but he can't vote.

Well, he can. He can vote absentee -- no photo ID, no need to appear in person. Maybe he can vote multiple times and drive from precinct to precinct -- just fill 'em out and send em in.

That's the gut of the argument behind the Republican challenge in Ohio (upheld, as per above) and in Wisconsin, where there are many many non-matches among new registrants.

I asked a Republican official who participates in these wars: "Is there really any evidence that lots of absentee voters are mistmaches? That there's really fraud going on?"

"That such voters are mis-matches, and therefore may be duplicates or not qualified to vote? That is exactly what the WI and Ohio litigation is about...to ensure states DO something with mismatches before counting absentee ballots with no ID."

What the states do, though, is up in the air.

The McCain campaign wants the states to review the applications and wants the appropriate election authorities to be on guard for this type of fraud...although they're afraid that massive dragnet sweeps will be politically untenable.... Republican state officials want to be aggressive and actually challenge real voters regularly.

Republicans are making procedural arguments about what HAVA requires; it's hard to find an honest GOPer who actually believes that Barack Obama will benefit in any statistically significant way from ACORN-related voter registration shenanigans.

The U.S. Supreme Court may have the final say here.

Comments

"it's hard to find an honest GOPer who actually believes that Barack Obama will benefit in any statistically significant way from ACORN-related voter registration shenanigans."

I guess John McCain's not an honest GOPer.

"Voter fraud could make me lose Florida":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6c12Of-lH0

Posted by Noah | October 15, 2008 12:05 PM

Republicans are making procedural arguments about what HAVA requires; it's hard to find an honest GOPer who actually believes that Barack Obama will benefit in any statistically significant way from ACORN-related voter registration shenanigans.

That, right there, is the crux of the matter. The goal of these GOP efforts isn't to target voter fraud; it's to intimidate and disenfranchise legitimate voters. (And to lay the groundwork for accusations that Obama "stole" the election.)

I guess John McCain's not an honest GOPer.

That's been pretty evident for some time now.

Posted by Darius | October 15, 2008 12:11 PM

The GOP is already working to deligitimize Obama's likely victory.

(Never mind that K. Harris's illegal purges of voter lists delitigimized Bush's "victory.")

I think Obama's win will be close, but beyond the margin of error that could be attributed to so-called "fraud" of a hypothetical voter who casts absentee ballots in a bunch of different counties or from multiple addresses. However, by creating the perception of "fraud" -- a pure boogeyman as far as I can see -- they're already working to deligitimize President Obama.

I'm not one to claim racism, but I think the charge has merit when it comes to the GOP's all-out effort to question whether Obama rightfully won the '08 election.

Posted by Debbie | October 15, 2008 12:13 PM

As an election attorney, who follows Hasen's blog and the election-law listserv closely, these claims of "fraud" are somewhat silly. The most intellectually honest things one can say are 1) they have the hypothetical potential for swinging an exceptionally tight election; and 2) they undermine Americans' faith in democracy.

Both are easy to refute:

On point 1, the so-called "Mickey Mouse" registrations don't result in ballots being cast; and this is much more about law-professor hypotheticals than about actual fraud. In fact, the plaintiffs in these cases or the voter ID cases almost never find evidence of true multiple-voting by individuals.

On point 2, it undermines democracy to intimidate people into disenfranchisement; and the other aspects of actual corruption in governmental processes (see, e.g., Ted Stevens; Al Gore's Buddhist Temple) are far more detrimental to "faith in democracy").

Posted by Donna | October 15, 2008 12:19 PM

Blaming ACORN is like blaming the store for getting shoplifted. They hire people to register voters on a quota. Probably not the best idea, but by falsifying data they are not doing the job they are paid to do. In many states ACORN is required by law to turn in all completed registrations. That's so they don't toss all the, say Republican, registrations out. They usually segregate the suspicious ones when they turn them in. Matter of fact in Nevada they actually asked the state to investigate certain aspects.

Posted by JimF | October 15, 2008 12:32 PM

Why are republicans always against allowing more people to vote?

Posted by Eddie | October 15, 2008 12:36 PM

An awful lot of provisional ballots got thrown out last time in Ohio for crappy reasons--e.g., someone goes to the right polling place, poll worker mistakenly tells them to go to the table for precinct 2, when in fact they were supposed to go to the precinct 3 table.

To say nothing of the 10 hour delays in Democratic cities.

Reporters seem to have the idea that genuine voter intimidation will look like the deep South before the Voting Rights Act. It doesn't have to look like that. You can just throw up as many procedural obstacles as possible, saying "of course everyone who has the right to vote should be counted, we just want to check & make sure there's no fraud." There is simply no credible question that GOP gov't of Ohio last time pursued a deliberate policy of making it more difficult for Democrats to vote, & thousands of votes were not cast as a result. After the election, though, the media was not interested because the election was over & because there wasn't a very strong likelihood that it affected the result in Ohio or nationally. But, it was still far, far, far more numerically significant than this ACORN mumbo jumbo, the current Sec. of State is quite right to be concerned about illegal purges of the rolls by county officials & you guys are collectively misleading the public by focusing on ACORN canvassers ripping off their employer more than, or even as much as, voter suppression. (To your credit, you've attempted to cut through some of the nonsense, but I still think you're not going nearly far enough--e.g., remember the U.S. Attorney scandal & its connection to "vote fraud" investigations?)

Posted by Katherine | October 15, 2008 12:39 PM

Voter fraud is a myth. There were only a handful of cases that have been prosecuted. And inthose cases, they were isolated incidents and not part of some vast conspiracy to steal an election. And let's face it, five fraudulant cases of voter fraud aren't enough to steal any electon, especially if they're spread over several states.

And whats more, a whole bunch of US Attorneys got fired because they refused to prosecute bogus claims of voter fraud.

This is a game republicans always play. Now, they're playing it to try to delegitimize a probable Obama win.

It's transparent, it's cynical, its disgusting and its standard operating procedure for republicans who don't like the idea of letting the people decide.

Posted by freaktown | October 15, 2008 1:04 PM

The Republicans desperately want to find a way to steal their third consecutive election. But this time it won't work, because Obama's margin of victory will be too big for their usual tricks to work.

You can bet, though, that the Republican Supreme Court will do everything it can to thwart the will of the people.

Posted by Magic Dog | October 15, 2008 1:40 PM

Marc Ambinder

You should actually research a topic before parroting GOP talking points about it. Have you ever wondered HOW you end up with an absentee ballot? Do you think you just walk down to the corner grocery store and they hand you a form? It actually is a somewhat tedious process with several criteria that you have to meet even to be eligible for an absentee ballot. And even AFTER that many states only allow it if your signature matches up with your voter registration. I am going to post the requirements just for Michigan but before I do let me say this voter suppresion is a much bigger problem and there was a recent court ruling against the GOP trying to keep people from voting who have had their houses foreclosed on but I dont see any blogs up about that. I wonder why.

Michigan:

Absentee Ballots
Absentee voter ballots are available for all elections. They provide voters with a convenient method for casting a ballot when they are unable to attend the polls on Election Day.

As a registered voter, you may obtain an absentee voter ballot if you are:

age 60 years old or older
unable to vote without assistance at the polls
expecting to be out of town on election day
in jail awaiting arraignment or trial
unable to attend the polls due to religious reasons
appointed to work as an election inspector in a precinct outside of your precinct of residence.
A person who registers to vote by mail must vote in person in the first election in which he or she participates. The restriction does not apply to overseas voters, voters who are handicapped or voters who are 60 years of age or older. (Voting in person on one governmental level clears the restriction on the other levels. For example, if a voter subject to the restriction votes in person at a school election, the voter would be free to obtain an absentee ballot for the first state election in which he or she wishes to participate.)

Requesting an Absentee Voter Ballot

Download your absent voter ballot request.
Send your absentee ballot request form to your local clerk.
Solicitud para obtener Papeletas para Votar en Ausencia (Absent Voter Ballot Application)

Your request for an absentee voter ballot must be in writing and can be submitted to your city or township clerk. (For assistance in obtaining the address of your city or township clerk, see www.Michigan.gov/vote) Your request must include one of the six statutory reasons stated above and your signature. You must request an absentee voter ballot by mailing the online application, with a letter or post card, or you can obtain a pre-printed application form at your local clerk's office. Requests to have an absentee voter ballot mailed to you must be received by your clerk no later than 2 p.m. the Saturday before the election.

Once your request is received by the local clerk, your signature on the request will be checked against your voter registration record before a ballot is issued. You must be a registered voter to receive an absentee ballot. Requests for absentee voter ballots are processed immediately. Absentee voter ballots may be issued to you at your home address or any address outside of your city or township of residence.

After receiving your absentee voter ballot, you have until 8 p.m. on Election Day to complete the ballot and return it to the clerk's office. Your ballot will not be counted unless your signature is on the return envelope and matches your signature on file. If you received assistance voting the ballot, then the signature of the person who helped you must also be on the return envelope. Only you, a family member or person residing in your household, a mail carrier, or election official is authorized to deliver your signed absentee voter ballot to your clerk's office.

Posted by sgwhiteinfla | October 15, 2008 2:22 PM

You can TRY to register as Mickey Mouse. The registrar doesn't have to register you without investigating.

Posted by Mike | October 15, 2008 2:33 PM

To echo Jim F, this is like a traveling salesman who is supposed to sell vacuums door to door, but instead hangs out at the hotel pool and then lies to his company by filling out fake order forms.

Like ACORN, the company doesn't get anything beneficial from a pile of fake paperwork. They're getting scammed! It's costing them time and money!

Not to mention the opportunity cost of people who actually would have bought vacuums (or who would actually have registered to vote) if a real salesguy had knocked on their door!

Republicans know this. Real political journalists know this. Why exactly aren't they calling out Republicans who are peddling this nonsense?

Posted by anonymiss | October 15, 2008 4:05 PM

MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD in November, because in many states there is no safeguard? Our voter system has become compromised because of the 13 to 30 million illegal aliens in our nation. Do you really think that our corrupted government is going to give you accurate numbers of illegal aliens. I blame both parties, the Liberal-Socialist judges that have allowed this to happen, because anybody, just ANYBODY can say they have citizenship status?

With ACORN violating our laws, and other ominous entities, how can we expect an honest vote in two weeks. Many states do not have the resources to check, who has a legal right to vote? What's going to stop millions of illegal foreign nationals from uttering perjury, that can be located in any Post Office, Department of Motor Vehicles or even in a rural court house. As an Independent is it even worth voting, when our US constitution has become just a piece of paper by Liberal judges.

Read what Rep. Tom Tancredo (CO) Interview at YALE UNIVERSITY about the illegal immigrant occupation of our country: http://thepolitic.org/content/view/109/ IT WILL CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT THIS EVER INCREASING PLAGUE.

Some five million fraudulent home mortgages are in the hands of illegal aliens, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The middle class already overburdened with war appropriation funds, is still force to pay for the education, free health-care and Federal, state welfare handouts for illegal criminals and millions of illegal alien families. SIGN UP FOR THE SAVE ACT(H.R.4088) enforcement 'ONLY' law at www.numbersusa.com.

SIGN JUDICIAL WATCH, A LEGAL ORGANIZATIONS PETITION, TO RESCIND ALL 'SANCTUARY CITIES & STATES. www.sanctuarybusters.org / source. www.numbersusa.com to Petition the SAVE ACT. For immigration facts not propaganda or lies,

Posted by Brittanicus | October 17, 2008 4:52 PM