Back to Ohio
by digby
By this point everyone should know about Ohio Secretary of State Jon “Katherine Harris” Husted. He’s gettin’ ‘er done. Here’s Ari Berman:
Once again Husted is playing the voter suppression card, this time at the eleventh hour, in a controversial new directive concerning provisional ballots. In an order to election officials on Friday night, Husted shifted the burden of correctly filling out a provisional ballot from the poll worker to the voter, specifically pertaining to the recording of a voter’s form of ID, which was previously the poll worker’s responsibility. Any provisional ballot with incorrect information will not be counted, Husted maintains. This seemingly innocuous change has the potential to impact the counting of thousands of votes in Ohio and could swing the election in this closely contested battleground…
In 2008, 40,000 of the 207,000 provisional ballots cast in Ohio were rejected. The majority of the state’s provisional ballots were cast in Ohio’s five largest counties, which are strongly Democratic. Moreover, provisional ballots are more likely to be cast by poorer and more transient residents of the state, who are also less likely to vote Republican.
The number of discarded provisional ballots could rise significantly due to Husted’s directive. It’s also very likely that more provisional ballots will be cast in 2012 than in 2008, thanks to a wave of new voting restrictions in Ohio and nationwide. The Associated Press reported that 31 percent of the 2.1 provisional ballots cast nationwide in 2008 were not counted, and called provisional ballots the “hanging chads of 2012.”
A series of missteps by the secretary of state and new rulings by the courts have increased the use of provisional ballots and could delay the outcome of the election and the legitimacy of the final vote.
If this happens I’m fairly sure that everyone will just throw up their hands again and say “get over it” but at some point fixing our electoral system to prevent these shennanigans has to happen if the United States wants to continue to claim to be a democracy. When partisan election chiefs openly suppress the votes of their political rivals, you’ve crossed the line, even if the members of the jaded political establishment simply take a quick sniff of snuff, shake out their lace cuffs and declare the controversy dull and boring.
After the Ohio controversy of 2004 I wondered if Democrats were creating a legitimacy crisis by claiming that the voting machines had been hacked (among other things.) I was very short sighted and wrong. Even though I’ve been following this vote suppression campaign for a very long time, it never occurred to me that they would be able to institutionalize this “voter fraud” myth so quickly. They are very good at what they do.
Meanwhile, in Florida, early voting is in chaos. I think we all know about the possibility for a disputed election down there …
Update: Ah CNN, we can always count on you to claim that this is all silly partisan posturing, with the Tea Party backed “vote fraud” zealots True the Vote and Election Protection being two sides of the same coin:
JOE JOHNS, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Long lines in south Florida and in Cincinnati, Ohio, as early voting comes to a close, and those aren’t the only crowd this hotly contested election has attracted.
ERIC MARSHALL, ELECTION PROTECTION: Ten thousand grassroots and legal volunteers across the country in election country.
CHRISTIAN ADAMS, TRUE THE VOTE: Everywhere. They’re going to be everywhere. They’ve trained people in 50 states to legally poll watch.
JOHNS: Lawyer and poll watch of all political stripes descending on Ohio and across the country in search of any issues that need to be challenged.
MARSHALL: We’re looking for long lines that might be the result of machines breaking down, poll workers that might be asking the wrong question, asking for ID when they shouldn’t be.
JOHNS: Groups like the left leaning Election Protection have been training for weeks so they’re ready to respond to any problems at the polls in real time.
MARSHALL: With all the changes nationally in the voting laws, I think we’re prepared for there to be a significant amount of confusion on Election Day.
JOHNS: But controversy over how they do their job, poll watching has become part of the business.
(on camera): What do you think of the election protection people?
ADAMS [True the Vote]: Look, they have problems.
JOHNS (voice-over): Former Justice Department lawyer Christian Adams now represents True the Vote, a Tea Party-affiliated vote with a simple goal.
ADAMS: Free and fair elections. True the Vote stands with election integrity. Follow the law, period.
JOHNS: But True the Vote has real critics of their own from the left.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: True to Vote has been stay it is likely challenged the voting rights of legitimate voters we must address anybody who tries to deny anybody that right to vote and I consider it criminal. I consider it unpatriotic and I think — and highly offensive.
JOHNS: A claim Adams does not take likely.
ADAMS: They’re liars. They’re bearing false witness against law-abiding citizens who are doing no more than observing the process, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
No, he is the liar. True the Vote is doing a whole lot more than “observing”. They are actively interfering. But don’t worry, they aren’t just ordinary citizens. Republicans have installed some of these lunatics in official positions in Ohio.
And then there’s this:
JOHNS: Whatever the election watchers find, it may ultimately be up to super lawyers like Ted Olson to determine whether to go to court. Olson, a Romney adviser, led Republicans to victory from a Supreme Court battle between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000.
THEODORE OLSON, 2000 BUSH CAMPAIGN LAWYER: I’m clearing my calendar just in case I need to be ready for the next five weeks.
JOHNS: He says if elections officials want to avoid litigation, they shouldn’t change direction in the middle of the game.
OLSON: If you follow the rules that were in place on Election Day with respect to counting the ballots, then the presumptive outcome will be respected when the Electoral College votes are counted.
JOHNS (on camera): But the truth is there could be other changes to the rules especially as states affected by the superstorm get ready for the election.
Notice the similar language of Adams the Tea Partier and Olson the top lawyer: “Follow the law, period.” No matter how trivial, no matter how many it disenfranchises, every tiny bureaucratic rule is sacred when it comes to counting the votes of Democrats. There will be no exceptions, even to allow citizens to cast their legal vote.
The good news is that Democrats are more prepared this time and have their people ready to go too. If there’s going to be a post election fight it won’t be as one-sided this time.
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