The Cincinnati Enquirer has a major story today on widespread voter disenfranchisement in the state, finding that Ohio regularly tosses thousands of valid votes due to a combination of a “confusing maze of state laws, administrative directives and court rulings on voting procedures, errors – by voters and poll workers alike – and other factors”. Republicans will of course tell you it’s working as intended.
The problems call into question both whether every Ohioan’s vote will be counted Nov. 6 and whether the state, always pivotal in close presidential races, can assure the nation a timely, accurate and lawsuit-free count.
“If the Wednesday headlines the day after the election say, ‘All eyes are on Ohio,’ it probably won’t be a good thing,” said Ed Foley, an Ohio State University law professor and a nationally respected expert on election laws.
In Hamilton County alone, hundreds of votes are routinely disqualified in major statewide elections because they are cast in the wrong precinct, often only feet from the correct location. Hundreds more votes have been tossed out for another relatively minor miscue: voters’ failure to seal an inner envelope containing their absentee ballot.
“Every vote is a voice,” said new Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Tracie Hunter, who owes her election to a federal court ordering local officials to count some contested 2010 ballots. “People fought, bled and died for the right not only to vote but to have that vote counted.”
And yet the disenfranchisement is — surprise! — most likely to happen in Ohio’s three largest urban counties, Hamilton (Cincinnati), Cuyahoga (Cleveland), and Franklin (Columbus).
The Enquirer’s examination of how well Ohio is prepared for November found:
• Unless voters take a more proactive approach about how and precisely where to vote, poll workers improve their performance over past elections or courts order new changes before Election Day, tens of thousands of ballots are likely to be disqualified.
• Ohio has adopted only a few of the changes recommended after the 2008 election to improve registration, Election Day and vote-counting procedures.
• All 88 Ohio counties have prepared lengthy election administration plans outlining their preparations for November, including recruitment and training of poll workers, steps to ensure that individuals vote in their correct precinct and how to process ballots. Some, however, have failed to make adjustments that could help remedy past electoral problems.
The bottom line is that in a state that may be decided by a few thousand votes, we could see tens of thousands of votes thrown out. A healthy chunk of them will be in the state’s most urban districts. Nothing’s changed since these institutionalized problems cost John Kerry the state and the election in 2004, problems created through years of neglect. Now Ohio may decide the White House or control of the Senate once again.
And keep in mind, Ohio does not have strict Voter ID laws like neighboring Indiana or Pennsylvania. Imagine if it did. Tens of thousands more would be disenfranchised. And this will only get worse.
David in NY
“confusing maze of state laws, administrative directives and court rulings on voting procedures, errors – by voters and poll workers alike – and other factors”.
What did Bush v. Gore say, now? A system like that violated Equal Protection? I’m sure the Supreme Court will step in to fix it all …
General Stuck
I saw a poll today that said roughly 40 to 50 percent of American adults don’t know how many justices sit on the supreme court. And the world is watching the only superpower fumbling toward an accurate election. If they ain’t afraid, then they ought to be.
BGinCHI
The right to vote should at least match that of being accused of a crime: innocent until proven guilty.
Voters should be able to cast their vote and be presumed to be doing so legally and in good faith until something arises that puts this into question. Thus, no restrictive laws that target voters generally; only a system that signs up voters and counts them off the rolls when they vote.
I can’t believe a lawsuit from some voters after this election would not put these voting disenfranchisement fuckheads out of business. There oughta be a law.
Cargo
The republicans know mitt romney cannot beat obama, so they’re going to do everything in their power to help.
gwangung
Conservatives don’t believe in that.
They’d rather 10 innocent people get convicted than let one guilty person go free.
Zach
Yup. As much as people (myself included) are complaining about voter-ID laws, it’s the apparently bipartisan aspects of post-Gore/Bush voting reform that, in combination with well meaning but inept election workers, will (and probably has) turn elections. Don’t have time to look up the links now, but there are studies on provisional balloting that show it invalidates legitimate votes in poor/populous communities to a greater degree than in rich/suburban ones.
And this is without a higher number of people requiring provisional ballots because of voter ID laws. Furthermore, many states wrote elections laws (mandated to do so by the Help America Vote Act) that, for no good reason, require all balloting after the official poll-closing time to be provisional. This, of course, happens all the time in urban, working-class communities because of weather- or process-related delays. This is the case in conservative and liberal states, by the way. It’s not really an intentional attempt at vote suppression — it’s just institutional idiocy.
Lastly, provisional ballots, even if they are counted, often lack the ability to vote for lower-level offices and issues that vary depending upon your precinct. For example, I sort of think I know what I’m doing when I vote, but I did exactly what this article’s talking about and went to the wrong table in a multi-precinct voting location. Because of inept-if-kindhearted election workers, I basically had to cast a provisional ballot that didn’t let me vote for city council (I could’ve put up a huge stink and ruined everyone’s day and voted eventually).
Zifnab
@gwangung: Whoa, now. Are those ten people rich, white men? Are we talking about people or people here? I mean, everyone is equal. But some are a bit more equal than others.
Patricia Kayden
Hopefully the DNC will get out there and educate Ohioan voters so that their votes count. Not sure what else can be done about these scary voter repression stories.
It seems like we hear the same stories every 4 years. Perhaps the DNC has to be more proactive in helping voters get the correct ID since moaning and groaning does nothing to get votes for Dem candidates.
If I were a Repub, I’d be quite satisfied with the status quo — my group passing impossible ID laws, and the opposing group sighing/crying about how these laws are so unfair. Bottom line, Dem votes don’t get counted and my group wins.
James E. Powell
I guess that 2010 election in Ohio was pretty important.
Unless every living Democrat shouts about it every day, constantly putting public pressure on Republican officials to back off of vote suppression, nothing is going to get done. There seems to be an attitude of ‘somebody should do something!’ but the somebodies who are most concerned with this aren’t really in a position to do anything. It takes big shots bellowing. A lot of them. And I don’t know or at least I haven’t heard of many big shots in Ohio who are really, really lighting fires.
JoyfulA
@BGinCHI: There’s a state trial going on right now in Pennsylvania, where the ACLU, some other organizations, and some voters who don’t have and can’t get the voter ID the GOP put in this year are suing the state. Here’s hoping! (We’d rather see it decided on the state constitution than risk going before Scalia’s SCOTUS.)
And our new law is so bad and so restrictive that AG Holder is making inquiries, and some other lawsuits are pending.
Kathleen
I disagree, Zandar. Kerry’s defeat was not result of institutional problems. It was the result of willful voter suppression and rigging the count via hacking electronic voting machines.
erops
A simple item that I’ve wondered about: who determines how many poll workers & booths there are? After the long, long waits in the past, shouldn’t the calculation be for more than enough?
This is all so depressing.
tofubo
just wrote my brother and sister-in-law in ohio:
if mittens wins ohio by one and therefore the electoral college at 270, you know it was because of me
Spatula
If only the Democrats, at the state and federal levels, had had eight years since the second stolen Bush election and four years since Ohio was a mess again, to raise holy hell about these voter suppression issues and do something about them legislatively. If only!
Oh…wait…