Official Vote Fraud in Ohio

Cincinnati.Com's Peter Bronson reports that Secretary of State of Ohio, Jennifer Brunner who won her position on the issue of voting irregularities is now actively trying to suppress votes for McCain.

Two Hamilton County voters have sued, accusing her of "the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters."

The John McCain campaign sent out more than 1 million applications for absentee ballots to Republicans. Each had a line at the top next to a box: "I am a qualified elector."

Brunner sent a memo telling county election officials to reject those applications for absentee ballots if the box was not checked. "Failure to check the box leaves both the applicant and the board of elections without verification that the applicant is a 'qualified elector'," she wrote.

But that's contrary to state law and Brunner doesn't have the authority, according to the lawsuit and an opinion from Hamilton County's Republican Prosecutor Joe Deters.

Ohio law allows voters to request an absentee ballot on the back of a grocery sack if they want to, as long as they include their name, address, date of birth, signature and either a driver's license number, last four Social Security numbers or a valid picture I.D.

There is nothing in the law about checking a box to verify a qualified voter. The voter's signature is enough, because that's what is checked to send ballots, said Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Greg Hartmann, who ran against Brunner in 2006 and is now county chairman for the McCain-Palin campaign. "It's just bald partisanship," he said. "She's trying to disqualify likely McCain voters."

Brunner's defense,

"While state law does not require a check box, the McCain-Palin campaign designed its form to require that voters check a box to affirmatively state they are qualified electors."

Yet she claims she is just looking out of the system.

Brunner's web site says she "wants to ensure that Ohio elections are free, fair, open and honest; and to encourage the highest level of participation in our democracy."

Unless of course if those votes are Republicans.

She is being tough on the people with applications from the McCain campaign but she is liberal on letting just about anybody else get in to vote. So much so that the law requiring a person to be a resident for 30 days before being eligible to vote is being interpreted to only apply to the period before election day and not to the period of early voting by absentee ballot.

The "no-fault absentee" voting law has been in place since 2005, when it was passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and signed by GOP Gov. Bob Taft.

The law allows absentee voting, for any reason, to begin 35 days before an election. Another law on the books for several years closes voter registration 30 days before Election Day.

That leaves a five-day period during which people can register and immediately vote absentee. In Franklin County, about 60 did so for the 2006 general election, with no recorded complaints.

But the registration/voting window suddenly has become an issue this year because Democrats have announced a get-out-the-vote campaign to capitalize on the opportunity.

Kevin DeWine, a state representative and deputy chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, argues that Brunner's interpretation creates "an illegal loophole in the state law to advance same-day registration and voting ... which was never a consideration when the General Assembly passed the law."

DeWine said Brunner's "troubling partisan agenda" violates elections law that requires voters to have lived in a precinct at least 30 days before they are qualified to vote.

"This has nothing to do with denying people access to the ballot," he added. "The issue is about whether or not safeguards are in place."

By Alan Johnson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

So she is willing to let slide a loophole on one end that Democrats are exploiting but be strict to the extreme when judging Republican applications. So much for her Profile in Courage award for standing up for the integrity of the vote.








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h/t Rick Moran at The American Thinker