OCTOBER 17, 2008, 12:33 P.M. ET Supreme Court Sides With Ohio Election Official By <http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=AMY+MERRICK&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND>AMY MERRICK
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122425922129244747.html?mod=djemalertNEWS>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122425922129244747.html?mod=djemalertNEWS The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Ohio's top election official, granting a stay of a temporary restraining order that would have required thousands of voter registrations to be verified before Election Day. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to consider granting the stay, after the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the restraining order 9-6 on Tuesday. <http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/08A332.pdf>Read the Supreme Court ruling <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122418765418441935.html>Earlier: Registration Discrepancies Complicate Ohio Vote The Sixth Circuit said Ms. Brunner must notify election boards of all voter records containing information that doesn't match driver's license or Social Security databases. The restraining order set a deadline of today to either provide lists of mismatches to election officials or give them an easy way to search a state database. County boards of election were preparing to comb through the lists in search of questionable registrations. The Supreme Court appeal by Ms. Brunner, a Democrat, said many mismatches will appear for trivial reasons. She said Wednesday that as many as 200,000 of Ohio's 660,000 new registrants this year could be affected. She said her office was working to comply with the order but was turning up glitches in the matching process. The appeal was filed directly to Justice John Paul Stevens, who oversees the Cincinnati-based Sixth Circuit. Justice Stevens referred the case to the full Supreme Court, which is meeting today to consider cases. In its brief decision, the Supreme Court said the U.S. District Court in Columbus should not have granted the Ohio Republican Party's request for the restraining order. The Supreme Court said the order wasn't justified because the Ohio GOP was not sufficiently likely to prevail in its argument that the lower court was authorized by Congress to enforce a section of the federal Help America Vote Act in a lawsuit brought by a private citizen. President George W. Bush narrowly won Ohio in 2000 and in 2004 took it by just 118,000 votes. Current polls show the state and its 20 electoral votes to be a tossup. ========================= In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. You are receiving this message because you are signed up to be on Baltimore News Network's News List. To be removed, please send a reply message with REMOVE in the subject line. For information about Baltimore News Network, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization, or to make a donation to BNN via PayPal, visit <http://baltimorechronicle.com>http://baltimorechronicle.com. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
