Election engineering from Conservistan

Greenboy, that list you started is becoming a monster.

I can't find a hyperlink anywhere on the Cincinnati Enquirer's website for this article, but I can assure you it was front page new here yesterday. Anyone remember Ohio Secretary of State, Mr. "Those Democratic Voter Registration Cards Don't Count Because They Are On The Wrong Paper Stock Ken Blackwell? He's baaaaacccckkkk!

DEFIANT BLACKWELL RIPS JUDGE
Secretary says he'd go to jail before rewriting ballot memo
By Gregory Korte and Jim Siegel

MIAMI TOWNSHIP - Ohio Secretary of State J. Kennth Blackwell said Thursday that he would rather go to jail than rewrite his guidelines on out-of-precinct voters -- even when ordered to by a federal judge. [emphasis mine]

"Some of the best writing in history has beend one from jail," Blackwell said, invoking the names of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the apostle Paul. [I'm surprised he didn't add Hitler to the list.] "I wasn't going to write a directive that I believe violates Ohio law."

Blackwell made the comments in a breakfast sppech to the Loveland Area Chamber of Commerce in Clermont County. Asked afterward whether he was exaggerating for effect, Blackwell said his critics "underestimate what I'm prepared to do" to ensure a fair election under Ohio law. ["Ensure a fair election"? Talk about framing an issue.] ...

Wednesday, as part of a lawsuit brought by Democrats, a federal judge in Toldeo [Ohio] rewrote a Blackwell directive on so-called "provisional" ballots. U.S. District Judge James G. Carr ordered that election workers in Ohio allow residents of a county to cast a presidential vote is any precient in that county, regardless of where they live.

He cited the 2002 Help America Vote Act, a reform that came out of the chaotic post-election vote counting in Florida that decided the 2000 presidential election.

Blackwell wants Ohio to follow the longstanding precient-based system requiring voters to vote where they lived.

Let's get one thing straight: Provisional ballots exist to allow voters who have moved and do not know what precient they have registered in a chance to participate in our government's democratic electoral process. You know, practice their rights, our government allowing everyone who wishes to have a voice in the democratic process to have one, etc.

During my stay in Conservistan, I happened to take in a couple geography classes at the University of Cincinnati. One of which was Political Geography. (Me? Use vacation time to sit in on political courses? Yeah, I know, I'm weird.) While Blackwell's decision on provisional ballots restricts voters from all sides, the polgeog professor explained things, and Blackwell's reasoning, very easily: Most people who have moved around are renters, usualy young people who live in urban environments and lean towards the Democrats during elections. Blackwell knows damn well which voter will be most disenfranchised by his decisions... Decisions which a federal judge just said are in blatant violation of the law.

The rest of the article really isn't that important. But the AP article that ran above it in the Enquirer is worth mentioning. Luckily, it's been published to the web.

Provisional ballots face limitations
A judge ruled that the law doesn't require Florida to count a provisional ballot submitted in the wrong precinct.

TALLAHASSEE - Rejecting a claim by Democrats, a federal judge said Thursday that the state must reject provisional ballots if they're cast in the wrong precinct.

U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle ruled that people who show up at a polling place and aren't on the rolls should be allowed to submit a provisional ballot, in case it is determined later that they were in the right place and should have been on the rolls.

But he ruled that federal law doesn't require Florida to count the ballot if it's determined the voter submitted the ballot somewhere other than the assigned precinct.

So Hinkle, another District Court judge, has a different opinion on the matter. Judge Carr cited the "2002 Help America Vote Act" as the basis for his decision, whereas this AP article made no mention of the act, nor did it say if Judge Hinkle ever referred to it in his ruling. I'd like to read Judge Hinkle's opinion myself and see if he mentions it, but I can't: It hasn't been published to the web. Or I could just suck at researching, but I just spent 15 minutes on the Lexis side of Lexis/Nexis, searching for opinions from all District Courts, and I came up empty handed. It's pretty tough to come up empty handed after feeding Lexis/Nexis basic queries for 15 minutes.

The AP article goes on to list other states where federal judges have had positive and negative rulings on provisional ballots.

In Michigan and Ohio, they have ruled that ballots cast in precincts other than where the voter was supposed to go must count if they were submitted in the correct jurisdiction. In Missouri and Colorado, judges have ruled that votes in the wrong place don't have to be counted.

Many of these decisions, including Blackwell's one, are being appealed. I imagine the Supreme Court needs to take this case to solve the conflict arising among judges on how to handle it. I dread to think how they'll rule on the matter, but my only wonder right now is if they'll take the cases before or after the election is over.