the right of every Ohio created who is eligible to with and invesigate any and all irregularities
concerning the same. Mr. Blackwell's failure to demo Ohio law on this point constitutes a clear
instance where Ohio election law has been abrogated.
2.
version Back on the Right to Provisional Ballots
Facts
In a decision that Ohio Governor Bob Taft believed could affect over 100,000 voters,112
on September 17, 2004, Secretary Blackwell issued a directive restricting the ability of voters to
use provisional ballots. The Election Protection Coalition testified that the narrow provisional
ballot directive led to thousands of ballots from validly registered voters being thrown out
because election officials with limited resources never told many of the voters in their
jurisdictions where to cast a ballot on Election Day.113 While the Help America Vote Act
provided that voters whose names do not appear on poll books are to sign affidavits certifying
that they are in the correct jurisdiction and to be given provisional ballots, Secretary Blackwell
considerably narrowed the definition of `jurisdiction' to mean `precinct.'114 Alleging that
allowing voters to use provisional ballots outside their own precincts would be "a recipe for
Election Day chaos," Secretary Blackwell required such ballots to be cast in the actual precincts
of voters otherwise they would be discarded entirely.115 Mr. Blackwell's rationalization appears
to have ignored the fact that in prior elections, Ohio was able to grant far broader rights to
provisional ballots, and that other states that permitted voters to cast them from anywhere within
their county did not face the chaos he feared.
Because of Secretary Blackwell's restrictive order, the Sandusky County Democratic
Party filed a federal lawsuit to overturn it.116 The plaintiff's basis for the suit was that the order
was discriminatory because lower-income people were more likely to move and, thus, appear at
112
Gregory Korte & Jim Siegel, Defiant Blackwell Rips Judge, CINCINNA TI EN Q ., Oct. 22,
2004, at 1A.
113
Preserving Democracy - What Went Wrong in Ohio, Judiciary Democratic Forum,
(Dec. 8, 2004) (statement of Jon Greenbaum, Director, Voting Rights Project).
114
James Dao & Kate Zernike, Judge Rules for Democrats in Dispute over Ohio Voting,
N.Y. TI M E S, Oct. 15, 2004, at A22.
115
Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Judge: New Blackwell Directive on Provisional Ballots
Inadequate, AS S O C. PR E S S, Oct. 20, 2004.
116
Sandusky County Democratic Party v. Blackwell, 340 F. Supp.2d 815 (N.D. Ohio),
aff'g, 339 F. Supp.2d 975, rev'd, 387 F.3d 565 (6th Cir. 2004).
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