Jennifer Brunner's ruling could help Democrats in a key battleground state. Ohio secretary of state prevents vote caging

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner won plaudits from voting rights activists by issuing a directive that they say will protect the ability of millions of registered voters to cast ballots on Election Day.

Since those voters skew urban, young and low-income, Brunner’s ruling could be good news for Democrats.


Ohio Republicans, though, disagree with the ruling, saying that the voting rolls must be purged of outdated registrations in order to prevent voter fraud. They even compare her ruling with that of her predecessor — a Republican whose administration of the 2004 election led to partisan charges of voter fraud.

“It’s fairly clear that the secretary [Brunner] has decided that she is the ultimate arbiter of Ohio law and when she wants to change it she will,” said William Todd, chairman of the Ohio chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association and co-chairman of Lawyers for McCain in Ohio.

The voting rights activists worried that a 2006 state law — requiring that a piece of registered mail with election information be sent to every registered voter in the state — could disenfranchise voters. The practice known as “vote caging” occurs when legitimate voters are removed from election rolls because their residency is being questioned. Instead they would have to vote provisionally.

Kevin DeWine, a Republican in the Ohio State House of Representatives who authored the 2006 law, says it is not an undue burden on people whose mail is returned to show an identification card at the voting booth or to vote provisionally. “People think provisional ballots are a bad thing,” he said. “I think they are a safeguard on the integrity of the ballots.”

Under the law, the state is supposed to keep a list of voters whose mail is returned as undeliverable. Voting rights activists feared that those voters who are more likely to have their mail returned — young people, minorities and low-income people — will be removed from voter lists by local election officials.

Daniel Tokaji, an election law expert at Ohio State University, says that because certain groups such as low-income and young voters move more frequently, they are more likely to have their mail returned as undeliverable. “We can expect that vote caging would have a disproportionate effect on college students and any others who tend to move frequently,” Tokaji said.

If they do move within the county, they are still allowed to vote without updating their registration, even if they no longer receive mail at their old address.

The law required them to then show a form of identification at the voting booth and cast a provisional ballot if they did not have one.

Voting rights activists, and Brunner, noted that 60-day notices cannot be forwarded. Therefore people who are having their mail forwarded, such as a college students who are away for the term, will be put on the list even if they are valid residents.

In response to these concerns, Brunner issued a release last week directing that 60-day notices sent by boards of election to voters that are returned as undeliverable cannot be used as the sole reason for canceling an Ohio resident’s voter registration.

Brunner noted that voting rights groups intended to sue over this point if she had not issued the directive and that avoiding such suits would facilitate election administration.

“Secretary Brunner took an important step today to protect Ohio voters from partisan voter caging,” said Michael Slater of Project Vote.

But Todd disagreed. “Her statement that people should disregard Ohio law is just incredible,” he said. “She has no authority to do that.”

There are no plans yet for any Republican group or the McCain campaign to challenge her actions in court, even though Republicans say the ruling is helpful to Democrats because the groups most likely to be disenfranchised tend to lean Democratic.

Ohio Republicans also contest the assertion that mail-delivery issues disproportionately affect certain groups.

Todd compared Brunner’s action with those of her predecessor, Ken Blackwell, a Republican, whose controversial administration of the 2004 election led many Democrats to allege that fraud and disenfranchisement may have cost them the state of Ohio.

“The perception was created by Blackwell that he put his thumb on the scale for partisan purposes,” Todd said. “That has caused a lot of people to lose confidence in the system. I agree with critics of Secretary Blackwell and Secretary Brunner that you have to be exquisitely careful to not undertake actions that will have a partisan impact.”