In Ohio, Wary Eyes On Election Process

Clarence Rodgers has been driving Cleveland voters from the Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church to an early-voting center several times a week. (By Mary Pat Flaherty -- The Washington Post)
Buy Photo

Lawsuits over election issues have become increasingly common, said Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, adding that "Ohio is one of the worst . . . with more partisan wars."

Some lawsuits seek a concrete result -- Hasen cited Democratic efforts to knock Ralph Nader off the ballot in 2004 -- but the recent Ohio litigation, he said, along with "the talk about voter fraud and mismatching, is more for political consumption."

Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor and associate director of Ohio State University's election law center, said Ohio voters "do tend to focus on election mechanics more than [voters] elsewhere." It has reached such a pitch, he said, that "you would have to have been under a rock" not to know about it.

In 2004, the bickering centered on then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who co-chaired the Bush campaign in Ohio. He decided that votes cast in the wrong precinct would not count, and he required a certain stock of paper for registration applications; both rules were viewed as disqualifying many urban voters. He relented on the paper stock, but not in time to avoid an outcry.

This year, it is the Democratic Brunner being criticized.

Republicans here and elsewhere around the country have also cited problems with fake registrations collected by the community-organizing group ACORN, including 80 cards signed by a 19-year-old in exchange for cigarettes. The man was already a legally registered voter but has never voted in Cleveland, according to elections board spokesman Mike West.

Kimberly Balas, 48, a yoga instructor, said she and her friends have talked about bogus voter registrations, but "I'm not worried it would become voter fraud, because how would that work? You would need someone to show up and commit a crime by posing as someone or lying about being eligible."

Balas, a registered Republican who "may not vote that way," said she does have concerns about mail-in ballots. "I would want to know those are accurate -- that the right ones count and no wrong ones get through."

Thomasine Clark, 42, a longtime voter, is hoping that all the attention on registration problems does not discourage new voters from showing up.

"That worries me," she said. "I just don't understand why it's always we Democrats made out to be doing something dishonest."