Supreme Court favors Dems in Ohio voter case, ACORN and fraud top talking points for McCain-Palin
A major ruling from the Supreme Court came down today involving the always contentious issue of voter registration and identification. With the questionable activities of ACORN and other Democratic-leaning groups across the country already hot topics for the McCain campaign and Republicans, their loss in the Ohio case - a crucial battleground with a history of bipartisan shenanigans - should only serve to heighten the tension.
The SCOTUS decision comes in the wake of a lower court ruling against the Democratic government of Ohio that ordered the Secretary of State to go through a lengthy and expensive process to inform county election boards with lists of newly registered voters whose information doesn’t match exactly all documents on record with the state. Republicans saw it as a way to nullify the potentially false registrants via ACORN and weed out Dem-leaning voters from the official rolls.
The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and today they reversed that lower court decision, giving a big victory to Dem officials and activists with a little over two weeks until election day.
The U.S. Supreme Court, siding with Democrats, freed Ohio officials from a lower court order that might have limited participation by new voters in next month’s presidential election. Today’s ruling means Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, doesn’t have to provide county election boards with lists of new registrants whose information doesn’t match up with government databases. A federal trial judge had ordered Brunner to supply the lists by today.
Republicans who sued Brunner “are not sufficiently likely to prevail” in their lawsuit, the Supreme Court said. The two- page unsigned order was issued on behalf of the full court, without any published dissent.
Brunner said the judge’s order could have affected as many as 200,000 Ohioans, potentially forcing them to cast provisional ballots instead of regular ballots. Democrats likely would have been disproportionately affected by the judge’s order because of the party’s efforts to register new voters this year.
The Ohio Republican Party accused Brunner of ignoring her duty under a federal law to help weed out fraudulent registrations. The dispute was one of several fights that have made Ohio a center of legal controversy leading up to the Nov. 4 election.
Brunner “has fought at every opportunity the appeals of the people of the state and the county boards of election to provide an oversight of this election so it’s done in a free, fair and open matter,” said John McClelland, spokesman for the state Republican Party. McClelland had no immediate comment on the Supreme Court decision, saying the party would issue a statement later.
Brunner was elected secretary of state in 2006. She succeeded Republican Ken Blackwell, who was the target of Democratic criticism leading up to the 2004 election.
Brunner said in court papers that preliminary lists showed “myriad discrepancies” in voter information. “Many of those discrepancies bear no relationship whatsoever to a voter’s eligibility to vote a regular, as opposed to a provisional, ballot,” she said.
There was no immediate reaction from the McCain campaign or Republican Party. The Obama campaign is also not commenting on the court decision.
What is clear for the two campaigns is that controversies involving courts and voter registration will be key players in how this election turns out and just what sort of confusion and catastrophe will break out between now and November 4 - even after the election.
The McCain and campaign and the GOP will only get tougher on the voter fraud angle with the SCOTUS decision and he ongoing attacks they have launched on the nationwide liberal organization ACORN and both its highly questionable rolls of new registrants and its connections to Obama. That story has the potential to get even uglier after reports surfaced that the FBI is beginning low-level investigations of ACORN in potentially several states over the possibility of registration fraud.
Several F.B.I. offices are reviewing reports of fraudulent voter registrations submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, a liberal community organizing group that has been under fire from Republicans.
F.B.I. officials said their investigation of Acorn’s activities would, for now, focus on reports of voter registration fraud that have surfaced in several states.
This news was greeted with enthusiasm by the McCain campaign, with spokesman Tucker Bounds telling us that the ACORN controversy should force Obama to “come clean” on his campaign’s connections to the group and its “fraudulent voter activity.”
This theme that liberal groups are trying to steal the election with the direct involvement of the Obama campaign has become an even bigger storyline for McCain than Bill Ayers as of the last two days. Press releases and attacks on the stump have been everywhere as the Ayers controversy slowly burn out and the registration story snowballs. Is it an attempt by the McCain campaign to set themselves up to blame illegal Obama activities if they do fall short in the race?
Sarah Palin was on the trail in Ohio today and again hammered Obama on the ACORN connection, calling on him to release communications his campaign has had with the group and for Obama to join with the McCain-Palin campaign in pressing for a “full” investigation of voter fraud across the country.
Sarah Palin returned to Ohio today test-driving a new message against Barack Obama: Don’t “turn the Buckeye State into the ACORN state.”
The GOP vice presidential running mate did her best to link Obama with the well-publicized problems of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now related to voter registration.
Palin called on Obama to release all his campaign’s communications with the group.
And the Alaska governor contrasted the GOP campaign, which she said won’t tolerate fraud, with that of the Democrats, who she said refuse to disavow ACORN’s activities.
Something that consistently gets ignored in discussion about ACORN and the dire charges of “voter fraud” is that any fraudulent (wittingly or not) actions perpetrated by these groups with regard to registrations probably will not unfairly turn any election or cause massive voting irregularities. ACORN has been accused of - and actually admitted - allowing its contracted registration team members to basically invent voters to place as Democrats on the rolls. They either write down fake names or register people who clearly have no ID and no way to prove who they are at the polls; they would get a provisional ballot that would likely get dismissed. “Mickey Mouse” may be registered in Cleveland, but they will never show up at a polling place.
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The Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires that states compare information contained on voter registration apps to information in the states motor vehicles databases and the Social Security database in order to confirm that it is an accurate and valid registration (Sec. 241(b)3) - clearly states requirements for making information available to polling sites. The Ohio Sec. of State has been “performing” these confirmations (she claims) but in secret, and will not share the information with election boards locally or the public (Sec. 206). This is a clear attempt to withhold information, which would probably prove ACORN as a fraudulent organization and cut their funding + include some jail time. In court, withholding information is considered criminal.
This is not some new law (since she claims that she didn’t have time to prepare to validate these registrations), she had plenty of time to comply with the law - but she thinks that she is above the law and wants to protect her party and friends.
You know (on a personal note), I have to now question who does she owe the favor to that she needs to be protecting possible criminal actions? Is it the Democrat Party or Obama?
The US supreme court said the republicans can’t prevail because of standing, not merit. Outside groups can’t sue, which is an invitation to sue by an individual.
Today, it was revealed that in one county in New Mexico, 28 votes were fraudulently cast during the democrat primary. They were ACORN registrations for non-existing people. It does happen, it is that no one investigates it because the newspaper like fraudulent votes for liberals and the federal lawyers are Obama supporters.
How could the Supreme Court ignore obvious voter fraud? Bush won Ohio with less votes than the number of fraudulant votes cast in this state. If McCain loses this state by a narrow margin (say 100,000 votes) this will cast doubt on Obama’s victory. Our nation will be conflicted in a manner even greater than the Gore/Bush debacle. If Obama is connected with Acorn, will it even matter. It seems that this candidate’s past is irrelevant to most voters. But how can this be, with all of the dark shadows in his past. They can find time to conduct a second investigation into Sarah Palin, but little has been done up until now to find out Obama’s connections. If Obama wins the election by illegal means and the economy gets even worse, I believe he will become a hated president, and he might even be impeached. If, on the other hand, McCain gets elected, it’s likely that blacks will riot and Obama will claim the Bradley effect did him in. For my part, I’ll take my chances with McCain. We need a strong president, who can face an uncertain world. We don’t need an uncertain president, who doesn’t understand the world. Everything Obama has said leads me to believe that he is being primed by experts but his act is only smoke and mirrors.