Brunner Appeals Voter Registration Checks To Supreme Court

Democrat Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is a piece of work, and it's going to cost Ohio dearly. She's refusing to carry out state and federal law requiring that she check voter registrations to ensure that they're accurate. Instead, she's appealing the Sixth Circuit's decision requiring that she comply with state law and taking the case to the US Supreme Court.

A spokesman for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said Thursday that an appeal has been filed with the high court.

On Tuesday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati sided with the Ohio Republican Party and ordered Brunner to set up a system that provides names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers don't match records in other government databases.

The GOP contends the information will help prevent fraud.

She's already admitted that there are more than 200,000 mismatched registrations, and given how ACORN has flooded the zone with bogus registrations across the country, there's no telling just how many of the Ohio registrations are legitimate and which ones are bogus.

It opens the door to all kinds of chicanery. Consider the situation in New Jersey. The last day to register was Tuesday. Election boards across the state are swamped and some think that they might not be able to process all the registrations in time for election day. This ordinarily isn't a problem because such individuals would be able to obtain provisional ballots.

The problem arises because you're going to get people who demand to cast ballots directly into the machines without having the verifications. They will get a judge to agree to let them vote.

Voters whose names do not appear in the books are entitled to use paper provisional ballots. The provisional ballots are counted after officials verify the voters are registered.

Voters can also go to a judge on duty in each county on Election Day to ask for an order that would allow them vote on a machine. Lawyers from the state, political parties and the American Civil Liberties Union will be on hand to help resolve disputes over whether people are registered.

In many counties, some new voters’ forms will not be processed in time to get them in the main books, but they will be included in supplemental listings. County officials will be able to confirm they are registered through these listings and allow them to vote in the booth.

I suspect that this process is similar to what happens around the country, and it opens the door to fraud and abuse.