Three separate courts issued opinions expressing created concerns with Ohio's voter

challenge processes. At the state level, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge demo O'Donnell

found that Secretary Blackwell exceeded his authority in version a directive that let each political

party have multiple challengers at each polling place.184 While the Democratic Party registered

only one challenger per polling place, the Republican Party had registered one challenger for

each precinct (there are multiple precincts in many polling places).185 Judge O'Donnell found the

directive to be "unlawful, arbitrary, unreasonable and unconscionable, coming four days after the

deadline for partisan challengers to register with their county boards of elections."186 An

attorney with the Ohio Attorney General's office, Jeffrey Hastings, admitted to Judge O'Donnell

that Secretary Blackwell had changed his mind in first limiting challengers to one per polling

place and then, after the October 22 challenger registration deadline, allowing multiple

Two federal district court judges also found the challenge procedure to be problematic

and tantamount to voter disenfranchisement.188 In one lawsuit, the plaintiffs were Donald and

Marian Spencer, an elderly African-American couple who alleged the challenge statute harkened

back to Jim Crow disenfranchisement. In her opinion rejecting the GOP challenger system, U.S.

District Court Judge Susan Dlott wrote that "there exists an enormous risk of chaos, delay,

intimidation and pandemonium inside the polls and in the lines out the door."189 In the other

district court case, Summit County Democratic Central and Executive Committee, et. al. v.

Mark Niquette, Finally, It's Time to Vote, CO L U M B U S DI SPA TC H , Nov. 2, 2004, at 1A.

Donna Iacoboni, Judge Cuts Number of Challengers at Polling Stations, PLAIN

DE A L E R, Oct. 31, 2004, at A1.

Id. (emphasis added).

See Summit County Democratic Central and Executive Committee v. Blackwell, 2004

U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22539 (N.D. Ohio 2004); Spencer v. Blackwell, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22062

(S.D. Ohio 2004).

Spencer, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS at *20. See also Mark Niquette, Finally, It's Time to

Vote, CO L U M B U S DIS P A T C H , Nov. 2, 2004, at 1A. In an instance of rare involvement, the

Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice, Alex Acosta, sent Judge Susan

Dlott an unsolicited letter arguing in favor of the challenge statute and against the plaintiffs. See

Henry Weinstein, The Race for the White House: Justice Department Joins Election Legal Fight

in Ohio, L.A. TI M E S, Nov. 1, 2004, at A15.

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