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Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted may get his wish of disenfranchisement after all. A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday placed a stay on a lower court ruling that would allow voter disenfranchisement based on poll worker error.
The panel, all appointed by either Bush 41 or Bush 43, ruled that Ohio may disallow ballots where the voter used the wrong precinct to vote. This is true even if the poll worker directed the voter to the wrong precinct. Otherwise, the opinion says, this would “absolve voters of all responsibility for voting in the correct precinct.”
To understand this ruling better, you need to understand that in Ohio, as in other states, voters in different precincts often cast their ballot at the same polling place. This is especially true in, you guessed it, the urban areas of the state. So a voter could arrive at the correct polling place and simply get assigned the “wrong precinct” ballot by a poll worker. This “wrong precinct” ballot may be identical to the “right precinct” ballot; it could be an adjacent precinct where all the districts are the same, and therefore the candidates on the ballot as well. There may not even be a particularly visible way of a voter knowing that they voted in the “wrong” precinct. But this ruling allows for the possibility that they would have to confirm their precinct with the poll worker, which essentially means they would have to check the work of the poll worker, with their ballot against what they wrote down in the polling book. And this poll worker error happens more often than you think; with these rules in place, Ohio threw out tens of thousands of ballots in previous elections.
How this is supposed to be the responsibility of the individual voter is beyond me. There’s obviously a capacity for poll worker error in a multi-precinct polling place. For the most part it has no bearing on the voter’s ballot. What is the harm here? Why should those votes not count? The obvious answer is because this happens in higher-propensity Democratic districts.
This isn’t the end of the story: the Sixth Circuit merely stayed the ruling of the lower court. The appeal still must be heard. But we are five days out from the election.
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Justice delayed is justice denied.
And justice will be denied.From the ruling:
I live in Xenia, a small town population about 20K or so. There are twelve (at least) precincts where I vote, divided up into about 4 tables. First, you find the right table. There are lists posted everywhere that list precinct by address range. You go to your table and they find your name in the voter book for the right precinct and you sign. Precinct ballots are generally identical within the city, except for zoning and liqueur licenses. They give you a voter card for the machine and you go find a machine. Vote, and then return your card.
The vote machine doesn’t know you. Once you’ve passed the pollworkers, I don’t see how they’d kill your ballot.
However, you could check the ABSENTEE ballots against the precincts. Which are reportedly running heavily in Obama’s favor.
Not sure Husted is going to get all the voter suppression he wants from this, there are a lot of checks and even if one is missed once you’ve got that voter card you’re fine.
Boxturtle (But they’re so hot on this within the state GOP, I must be missing something)
They’re right, I think. To fix this would require a change in state law.
But the 6th circuit is pretty conservative and they sometimes rule based on their ideology and hope Kennedy can be convinced.
Boxturtle (Can anybody name a Democrat run state pushing measures like this?)
This just kills me. I’ve worked the polls for years in California, and in fact will be an Inspector on Tuesday. I can’t vouch for the rest of the state, but in Santa Cruz County, where we have multiple precincts at one location, there is a ‘start here’ table at the entrance, and then the precincts are separated, and one is re-verified (and signs the book) at the correct table.
If one is knowingly at the wrong precinct and unable or unwilling to get to the proper one, the Big Rule kicks in – “Let The Voter Vote.” Provisional ballots are counted by hand back at the clerk’s office, and any contest on that ballot where the voter is eligible to vote, is counted. When they vote, they receive a receipt that includes a number to call to confirm this.
I Do Not Understand how anyone can claim to value the country and the constitution (not to mention democracy) yet actively work to disenfranchise their fellow citizens.
Nope, because there aren’t any. It’s all ALEC-inspired crapola that the state GOPs have taught to their elected reps.
Did you actually read the decision? It only applies to wrong place/wrong precinct ballots. If the voter shows up at the right polling place, but they are directed to vote in the wrong precinct by a poll worker, their ballot gets counted (as affirmed by the 6th Circuit in a prior decision). This decision does not affect that prior ruling — as it makes clear in the second paragraph. Further, the decision does not change Ohio law, it simply denies an injunction forcing the Secretary of State to count ballots cast at the wrong place because under Ohio law voters have a responsibility to show up at the right polling place.
Husted is likely an up and comer in the Republican Party. Karl Rove can’t let that kind of “talent” go to waste.
Even when they’ve been provided the wrong information on their election materials?
Your argument sounds reasonable, and I did read the opinion. I think the following comment from the ThinkProgress piece linked in Dayen’s post is illuminating:
I’m not sure, from reading the opinion, where exactly this leaves a voter in the above situation. Is the same building/different precinct a case of “right place/wrong precinct”? How about across the street?
While I realize there is no right to vote in the Constitution, I think equal protection should require more responsibility on the part of the state (in this case, the poll worker) and absolution for voters who are simply following instructions of the poll workers. This opinion does not provide it – nor apparently does Ohio law.
Whether the decision was right or not, the original post (and the Think Progress post) mischaracterized it. I expect more from folks who purport to be sources of good information.
As an Ohio voter, I certainly understand how it can be confusing when there is more than one precinct at the same location, but that is not at issue in this ruling. Multiple precincts at a single location are fairly common in Ohio, and provisional ballots cast at the wrong table will be counted. At issue is when the voter goes to the wrong location. I’m not familiar with separate polling locations across the street from one another – even when I lived in Cleveland I never saw that — but that’s not the typical situation.
One reason for the rule is that it’s hard to confirm, after the fact, why a voter made a mistake. If a voter showed up at the right place, but went to the wrong precinct table, it’s reasonable to assume a poll worker gave them bad info. If they go to the wrong place, however, not so much. This is not an anomaly. If a voter calls the election board and is given the wrong poll closing time and they show up too late to vote, their vote doesn’t get counted. This really isn’t any different, so it hardly merits the breathless title (let alone the mistaken OP).