NEWS: Poll-challengers Banned in Ohio

euphplayer said:

Yes, but back then it was the Democrats supressing the black vote... Blacks voted republican back then, because Lincoln, a Republican, "freed" them.

[Edited on Nov 01, 2004 by euphplayer]

Meteu said:
The election results I got from the Federal Election Commission breaks down like this:

Clinton: 47,402,357
Dole: 39,198,755
Perot: 8,085,402
Everyone else running: 9,679,522

He won by 1,475,920. He barely got the popluar vote. You got me on 1996.

euphplayer said:

Yes, but back then it was the Democrats supressing the black vote... Blacks voted republican back then, because Lincoln, a Republican, "freed" them.

[Edited on Nov 01, 2004 by euphplayer]

xmasincambodia said:...
And then there's the matter of the counties in Ohio where
recently more people have registered to vote then there
are eligible voters in the county.
[Edited on Nov 01, 2004 7:45PM]

YOUNGSTOWN — More than 100 percent of those in Mahoning County eligible to cast ballots in the Nov. 2 general election are registered to vote.

About 104 percent of those who are 18 and older are registered to vote, which is impossible.

The 2003 U.S. Census says the county had 186,928 people who are at least 18. The county's board of elections lists 195,092 people eligible to vote, or 8,164 more adults than actually lived in the county in 2003, the most recent updated census count.

Some of those additional voters could be those who turned 18 in the past year. The 2003 Census listed 16,566 people between the ages of 15 and 19 in Mahoning. But because the category isn't broken down by each age, there isn't a way to find out how many were 17 in 2003 and are now 18.

The main reason the county's voter registration figure is more than 100 percent is the way it is permitted to take people off its voter rolls, said Michael Sciortino, election board director. People cannot be removed from voter rolls in Ohio unless they fail to vote in two presidential elections, die, or move out of the county and election boards find out, he said. The last election purge in 2001 removed about 5,000 people from Mahoning rolls.

Summit board rejects 976 voter challenges

Officials say four Republicans had no proof of impropriety. Angry citizens blast accusers

By Lisa A. Abraham

Beacon Journal staff writer


When Catherine Herold received mail from the Ohio Republican Party earlier this year, she refused it.

The longtime Barberton Democrat wanted no part of the mailing and figured that by refusing it, the GOP would have to pay the return postage.

What she didn't count on was the returned mail being used to challenge the validity of her voter registration.

Herold,who is assistant to the senior vice president and provost at the University of Akron,was one of 976 Summit County voters whose registrations were challenged last week by local Republicans on behalf of the state party.

She went to the Board of Elections on Thursday morning to defend her right to vote and found herself among an angry mob -- people who had to take time off work to defend their right to vote.

After hearing some of the protests, the board voted unanimously to dismiss all 976 challenges.

The move, ironically, came from Republican board member Joseph Hutchinson and was seconded by Republican Alex Arshinkoff after they determined that the four local Republicans who made the challenges had no evidence to back up their claims.

The group whose right to vote was at stake Thursday was diverse -- old and young, black and white, professional, blue collar, veterans, immigrants, and students -- and many were assisted by volunteer attorneys for the Ohio Voter Protection Coalition.

No further challenge

In addition to dismissing the challenges, the elections board ordered that none of those voters whose registrations were called into question could be challenged again at the polls.

The board was giving each a letter to present at the polls should their registrations be challenged there.

``I'm 62 years old, I've been voting for 40 years.... I think it's appalling. It's scare tactics,'' Herold said after her hearing.

Herold said she moved in January, but changed her address with the board of elections and has voted twice since then -- in the March primary and in the August special election.

But returning the Republican literature landed her on the ``challenged'' list.

Many of the challenged voters -- initially 35,000 statewide -- were targeted because cards sent to them were returned to local boards of election as undeliverable.

Herold was angry when she was notified that her right to vote was being challenged.

``I felt that my voracity was being challenged, that my honor was being challenged. They basically were saying that I lied about where I lived. I resented that.''

The challengers, all older longtime Republicans -- Barbara Miller, Howard Calhoun, Madge Doerler and Louis Wray -- were subpoenaed by the elections board and were present at the hearings. Akron attorney Jack Morrison, a Republican, volunteered to represent the four.

Democratic board member Russ Pry suggested that the four could be subject to criminal prosecution for essentially making false claims on the challenge forms. The form states that making a false claim is subject to prosecution as a fifth-degree felony.

On Morrison's advice, Miller then refused to take part in any hearings after Herold's, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Wray filed a challenge against 25-year-old Barbara Jean DeWilde of Stow, but testified that he had no personal knowledge that DeWilde didn't live at her Stow address, other than information he received from Summit County Republican Party headquarters.

DeWilde called the challenge ``a mockery of America's free election process.''

Immigrant responds

Twinsburg resident Errol Horam's registration was challenged twice.

An immigrant from Jamaica, Horam, 55, said he came to the United States because ``it is the greatest democracy on the face of the earth.''

``I am disappointed in the Republican Party,'' Horam said as he left the hearing room.

``I'm really disappointed that they are trampling on people's rights and democracy and depriving them of their right to vote.''

The angry voters had the Republicans on the defensive.

``Why'd you do it?'' one challenged voter shouted out at Calhoun. ``Who the hell are you?'' the man asked.

``What the hell do you care?'' replied Calhoun, an attorney.

After the hearing, Calhoun said he felt the challenges were legitimate.

``I thought there was reason to challenge them based on what was told to me by associates at the Summit County Republican Party on behalf of the Ohio Republican Party,'' he said.

Lisa McCraney of Tallmadge, whose husband RaShawn McCraney's registration was challenged, stepped up to the microphone and took to task those who filed the challenges.

``We work hard, just like you do, trying to make our living, trying to prove ourselves in this world to get to the point where we are 80 years old like you.

``But you signed your name to 200 documents of people you have never met a day in your life, challenging our right to vote.''

She finished talking to the four by telling them they needed to apologize.

Arshinkoff, chairman of the Summit County GOP, pointed to the state party and said Chairman Robert Bennett should be held accountable.

Bennett on Thursday defended the GOP's challenge of voter registrations, saying that efforts by Democrats that registered the likes of Mary Poppins and Dick Tracy to vote warranted it. However, he said GOP attorneys -- other than just Morrison -- should have been at the hearing to represent the four party members who signed the challenges.

``I don't know what happened. I'm still looking into that,'' he said.

Once the board dismissed the challenges, Morrison and Summit County elections Director Bryan Williams led the challengers out of the hearing room and into a back stairwell. Doerler questioned why challenges were dismissed. Morrison, however, advised them against answering questions.

Bennett said the party would stand behind the four and provide them with legal assistance, should they face legal action for signing the challenges.

Probe sought

Pry and elections board member Wayne Jones said after the hearing that they intend to contact the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the challenges.

``You don't mess with somebody's right to vote,'' Jones said. He believes the effort to challenge legitimate voters is proof that Republicans are running scared in Ohio.

Arshinkoff and Hutchinson were obviously angry with the state party.

Arshinkoff compared the proceedings to a ``train wreck'' and said representatives from the Ohio Republican Party should have been at the hearing to defend the lists of challenges that it prepared.

``This was not good,'' he said, adding that he wished the challenges would not have been filed. ``This is like asking somebody who was just told by the dentist that we're going to pull all of your teeth out without novocaine if you want to go through the procedure again,'' Arshinkoff said.

``There was no evidence,'' Hutchinson said of the challenges.

Hutchinson said he didn't know if Horam was a Democrat or a Republican, but he was sure he won't be voting Republican in this election.

Both agreed that a law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls would be the best way to protect voting.

xmasincambodia said:
Ahhh..;"disenfranchise" ...the left's new code word for when
a Democrat doesn't get to vote. Only the Republicans
are up to tricks in Ohio ..noone got in trouble a few weeks
ago for being paid in crack cocaine to register new
voters,. curiously enough, that gentleman was affiliated
w/ the NAACP..last time I looked, the NAACP wasn't clamoring for Bush's re-election.
And then there's the matter of the counties in Ohio where
recently more people have registered to vote then there
are eligible voters in the county. Oddly enough, most of
the election offices in those counties are run by.. you
guessed it.. Democrats.
But I am glad that people like Michael Jordan, George
Foreman and Mary Poppins have registered to vote lately in Ohio.
Lest they become "disenfranchised" ,you know?


[Edited on Nov 01, 2004 7:45PM]

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Tuesday, Nov. 2 - In a day of see-sawing court rulings, a Federal appeals court ruled early Tuesday morning that the Republican Party could place thousands of people inside polling places to challenge the eligibility of voters, a blow to Democrats who argued those challengers will intimidate minority voters.

The ruling, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, reversed two lower courts that had blocked the challenges just a day before. It also came as squadrons of lawyers from both parties in Ohio and other swing states from Pennsylvania to Florida to New Mexico were preparing for Election Day skirmishes that will include using arcane laws that allow challenges at the polls.
...

Sadistic_Bastard said:
Fabulous. Now if Kerry wins Ohio we can all rest assured it wasn't because Mary Poppins managed to vote in 17 different precincts.

A_Gluestick said:
Not to be mean but the electoral college has been there for a reason. Yes theoretically wyoming's vote counts for more than PA's vote does but its still winner take all for a REASON. If you win a state you get that state strictly because I vote a senator in no matter what side of the state he is from or how it is done. I hope Kerry wins and he shall if people believe Bush has failed so much.