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Judge Says Ohio Must Allow Provisional Ballots

Posted by timothy on from the turn-the-other-stile dept.

expriest writes "A Federal Judge has held that the state of Ohio must provide a provisional ballot to persons who claim to be registered, but whose names do not appear on the voter rolls. This decision reverses a policy by Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who was only allowing the provisional ballots in limited circumstances. Furthermore, the Judge put some teeth behind his ruling, allowing persons denied provisional ballot to sue the election official so doing for money damages."

2 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Ken Blackwell is a douchebag by expriest · · Score: 5, Informative

    Blackwell, the Ohio Secretary of State who got shot down here is working hard to be the new Kathrine Harris. He previously attempted to tear up voter registrations because they were printed on the wrong thickness of paper. And of course who could forget this absentee ballot, which for some reason omitted the Democratic candidates.

  2. Its about time by stinerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its about time someone put Blackwell in his place. IIRC, Blackwell is also for throwing out ballots that were cast in improper precincts.

    Usually, if a voter came to the wrong precinct, they could just vote a provisional ballot and then have any levies that they weren't eligible to vote for be not counted. Now Blackwell wants the entire ballot to be thrown out. Not to mention he didn't accept voter registration forms that were correctly filled out, but weren't on the proper paper stock.

    I'm not going to say this is partisanship on Blackwell's part, but let it be known that Ohio is run by the Republicans at every level of government.