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Ohio Provisional Ballot Ruling
Reversed
By JOE KAY
CINCINNATI - A federal appeals court ruled
Saturday that provisional ballots Ohio voters cast outside their own
precincts should not be counted, throwing out a lower-court decision
that said such ballots are valid as long as they are cast in the
correct county.
The ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals supports an order issued by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth
Blackwell. Democrats contend the Republican official's rules are too
restrictive and allege they are intended to suppress the vote.
Ohio Democrats on Saturday night decided
not to file an appeal in the case, one of the first major tests of
how such ballots will be handled in a close election. Polls show
that the race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry in the key
swing state is too close to call.
Federal judges in several
states have issued varying rulings on the issue of provisional
ballots, which are intended to be backups for eligible voters whose
names do not appear on the rolls. Saturday's ruling was the first
time a federal appeals court has weighed in.
The state's
Democrats had filed a lawsuit challenging Blackwell's directive
instructing county elections boards not to give ballots to voters
who come to the wrong precinct and to send them to the correct
polling place on Election Day.
Blackwell has said allowing
voters to cast a ballot wherever they show up, even if they're not
registered to vote there, is a recipe for Election Day
chaos.
The Ohio Democratic Party and a coalition of labor and
voter rights groups had argued that Blackwell's order discriminated
against the poor and minorities, who tend to move more
frequently.
U.S. District Judge James Carr on Oct. 14 blocked
Blackwell's directive, ruling that Ohio voters who show up at the
wrong polling place still can cast ballots as long as they are in
the county where they are registered. Blackwell appealed to the 6th
Circuit.
"Today's ruling reaffirms Secretary Blackwell's
understanding of the law," Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said in
a statement. "Unfortunately the frivolous lawsuits filed by the Ohio
Democratic Party and its allies have needlessly wasted the valuable
time of election officials across the state as they prepare for this
important election."
Democrats said Saturday they were
disappointed by the ruling but were ready to move on with election
preparations.
"To avoid any confusion, we are not going to
appeal this ruling," David Sullivan, voter protection coordinator
for the Ohio Democratic Party, said in a statement. "That way we can
ensure that voters and election officials understand that voters
must be in the proper polling place before casting a
vote."
The 6th Circuit did rule that the Democrats had a
right to file the lawsuit. Lawyers for the Department of Justice on
Friday had filed a brief in support of Blackwell saying Ohio
Democrats weren't legally entitled to challenge Blackwell's
position.
Similar court battles are under way in other
states. In Florida, a federal judge ruled Thursday that the state
must reject provisional ballots if they are cast in the wrong
precinct.
In Michigan, a federal judge said those ballots
must be counted if cast by voters at the wrong precinct but in the
right city, township or village. That decision also has been
appealed to the 6th Circuit, but the appellate court has yet to
issue a ruling in that case.
In Missouri and Colorado, judges
have ruled that votes in the wrong place don't have to be
counted.
Provisional ballots are not counted until after the
election. They are set aside and inspected by Democratic and
Republican election board employees to establish their
validity.
States nationwide have adopted individual standards
for when a provisional ballot can be cast and counted. Twenty-six
states and the District of Columbia require a provisional ballot to
be cast in the correct precinct, or it will not count.
In
2000, Bush beat Al Gore by only 3.6 percentage points in Ohio, which
went for Democrat Bill Clinton in the two previous elections. More
than 100,000 provisional ballots were cast in Ohio during the 2000
election. | 
