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| Ohio: Federal Judge Rules That State Registration Restrictions Are Unconstitutional |
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| By Warren Stewart, VoteTrustUSA | |
| September 02, 2006 | |
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On Friday, September 1, U.S. District Judge Kathleen O'Malley has granted a preliminary injunction that prohibits enforcement of those parts of Ohio House Bill 3 that deal with voter registration. The bill was enacted earlier this year and imposed crippling requirements on voter registration groups. Noting that Labor Day weekend would be a time of great voter registration activity, O’Malley issued the order from her bench just two hours after hearing arguments in the case. She ordered Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to update his website to reflect her decision within 5 days. "This is a win for democracy, and coming on the heels of the similar decision in Florida on Monday, the beginning of a national trend of courts rejecting unreasonable barriers to voter registration," stated Wendy Weiser, deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and co-counsel to the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs in the suit, Project Vote v. Blackwell, include Project Vote, ACORN, People For the American Way Foundation, Communities of Faith Assemblies Church, and Common Cause Ohio. At issue in the case were restrictions on voter registration in the state of Ohio enacted by House Bill 3 and the rules and procedures for voter registration set out by Blackwell, that have drastically limited the ability of civic groups to register new voters and threatened individual registration workers with felony charges for minor mistakes in complying with the new rules. The plaintiffs successfully argued that the rules will limit voter registration, unnecessarily exclude eligible voters from the election process, and suppress the vote in Ohio. The plaintiffs contested a procedure required by the Ohio Secretary of State that would have changed the process for returning voter registration forms collected by non-partisan civic groups conducting voter registration drives. In the past, citizens working to register voters were able to turn in the completed forms to a civic group or church that would review the forms for accuracy, turn them into the registrar, and follow up later to make sure the voter was actually registered. The rule enjoined today would have made it a crime to designate one person to hand in the forms collected in a drive; each volunteer or worker would have had to go personally to the election offices to deliver every form collected. Plaintiffs also successfully argued that rules that require online training excluded low-income citizens and civic groups who don't have computers, as well as individuals with disabilities. O’Malley, who stated her intention to issue a written decision soon, ruled that the regulations placed an undue burden on third parties trying to conduct voter registration drives and were “inconsistent with and undermine the purpose of the National Voting Rights Act.” Specifically she agreed with the plaintiffs that a requirement that anyone who registers another to vote return that voter registration card in person or by mail to the appropriate county board of elections, rather than allowing them to be turned into to the groups sponsoring the voter registration drive and returned in bulk. Also at issue was a requirement that anyone who registers another to vote return that voter registration card in person or by mail to the appropriate county board of elections, rather than allowing them to be turned into to the groups sponsoring the voter registration drive and returned in bulk. According to a Akron Beacon Journal article, O'Malley found that this “direct return” “clearly chills” voter registration efforts. She said no other state had such a requirement, and it served no legitimate state purpose. In the hearing, O'Malley posed several examples of potential violations of the law. “If I get a (voter registration) card and give it to my daughter and she fills it out and I give it to my secretary to mail, have I violated the law?” O'Malley queried. Lawyers replied that she would have because she did not mail it back herself. The judge found that a requirement that all those who are compensated for registering voters must register themselves at the secretary of state's Web site and participate in an online training session would discriminate against the poor who may not have access to the Internet, and those without the ability to use the Internet, particularly the elderly who may be less adept at computer use. The judge also found that a requirement for those who are getting compensated to register others to vote to sign the registration cards and put their address and employer's name on the cards would offer no help in trying to determine who was responsible for voter registration fraud, as it was highly unlikely that someone trying to register “Mickey Mouse” would sign their own name to the registration cards. O'Malley also said there was nothing to suggest that those getting paid for their efforts were more likely to commit fraud than those who were volunteering, and added that there already are laws in place to deal with voter registration fraud. Blackwell, who is running for Governor, has no intention of appealing the ruling and told The Associated Press that he didn’t expect political fallout from the decision. "Our campaign efforts were indifferent to the judge’s decision. We were ready to get our job done regardless of what the rules of play were," he said. "Getting the job done" of course includes serving as chief election administrator for his own gubernatorial election. Comment on This Article
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