Ohio Secretary of State Blocks New Voter Registrations
By Jim Bebbington and Laura Bischoff
Dayton Daily News
Tuesday 28 September 2004
Boards of elections told to strictly follow two provisions.
DAYTON - Voters-rights advocates are criticizing two recent decisions by Ohio Secretary of State J.
Kenneth Blackwell that they say will unfairly limit some people's ability to vote Nov. 2.
Blackwell's office has told county boards of elections to follow strictly two provisions in Ohio election
law:
One requires Ohio voter registration cards be printed on thick, 80-pound stock paper.
The other ordered boards to strictly interpret the rules regarding provisional ballots, the ones
cast by voters who move before the election but are still registered in Ohio.
The paper-stock issue is frustrating Montgomery County Board of Elections officials, who have a
backlog of registrations to complete. If they get an Ohio voter registration card on paper thinner than
required, they are mailing a new card out to the voter. But if they still have the backlog by the
registration deadline, Oct. 4, voters will not have another chance to get their correct paperwork in, said
Steve Harsman, deputy director of the Montgomery County board.
"There is just no reason to use 80-pound paper," Harsman said.
In Montgomery County there is a backlog of around 4,000 registrations, Harsman said. A few
hundred could be affected by this provision, he said.
Cuyahoga County board of elections officials are ignoring the edict because they have already had
an avalanche of new registrations submitted on forms printed on newsprint in The (Cleveland) Plain
Dealer.
"We don't have a micrometer at each desk to check the weight of the paper," said Michael Vu,
director of the Cuyahoga County Board.
Blackwell's office has given the Cuyahoga board a special dispensation to accept the newsprint
registration forms. The requirement is because the forms are designed to be mailed like post-cards
and must be thick enough to survive mechanical sorters at the U.S. Post Office, according to
Blackwell's spokesman Carlo LoParo.
"Our directive stands and it is specifically in place to protect new registrants to make sure the forms
are not destroyed," LoParo said.
Confusing the matter further is a national registration form available off the Internet at the federal
Elections Assistance Agency. That form must be accepted by Ohio boards regardless of what it is
printed on, Blackwell has said.
The heavy-weight paper was a requirement when the cards were kept for years, were used to keep
track of when a person voted, and were the main way to check signatures to combat voter fraud and
verify petitions. But many boards, including both Montgomery and Cuyahoga, scan the signatures into
a computer database and no longer record voting history on the cards.
The League of Women Voters of Ohio on Thursday called on Blackwell to clarify his position. League
national president Kay Maxwell said she knows of no other states that are requiring the 80-pound
paper stock for voter registration cards. "This is the first I've heard of it," she said on Thursday in
Columbus.
The other directive forbids poll workers from giving a provisional ballot unless the person can prove
they live in that precinct. Peg Rosenfield, spokeswoman for the league, said she interprets federal to
be less restrictive. Rosenfield says people who show up at the wrong precinct should be given a ballot
and allowed to vote on the non-local races. |
