Repair the problems with Ohio’s elections systems, says renewed NVRI claim

[eomer]

Repair the problems with Ohio’s elections systems, says renewed NVRI claim (September 13, 2006)

On September 13, NVRI and its co-counsel in League of Women Voters of Ohio v. Blackwell filed this brief with the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, urging the court to affirm a lower court’s ruling that our lawsuit seeking fundamental reform of Ohio’s dysfunctional election process is entitled to proceed. The lawsuit, filed last year on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, the League of Women Voters of Toledo-Lucas County, and more than a dozen Ohio citizens, alleges that Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, Governor Bob Taft, and their predecessors have failed to protect the fundamental rights of eligible Ohio voters to register, vote, and have their votes counted, as required by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The lawsuit does not challenge the results of any past elections, but instead seeks to bring about changes necessary to protect the rights of Ohio voters in future elections. Filed in federal court in Toledo, the complaint chronicles gross deficiencies in Ohio’s election administration over more than three decades, including widespread problems with the voter registration system, the absentee and provisional ballot processes, the training of poll workers, the organization of polling places and precincts, and the allocation of voting machines. The relief sought would require the state to repair problems at all stages of the electoral process that have disenfranchised and overly burdened Ohio voters and made the ability to register and vote vary widely from county to county.

NVRI is partnering in this case with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Proskauer Rose LLP, Arnold & Porter LLP, People for the American Way Foundation, and Connelly, Jackson & Collier LLP.

http://www.nvri.org/troubled_elections.shtml#vote_repair

[4nic8em]

1. Problems?

What problems? If I remember correctly, I thought the election process in Ohio in 2004 was a "bastion" of a fair and wonderfully performing democracy with Ken Slantwell at the helm. (Neonut talking point)