toledoblade.com --

The Lucas County Board of Elections sent notices yesterday to 931 people, informing them that their right to vote was under challenge, and that they must appear at a hearing Saturday morning at Government Center before they can cast a ballot in next week's election.

The hearing in Toledo City Council chambers will begin at 11 a.m.

"This is uncharted ground," said elections board counsel John Borell, an assistant Lucas County prosecutor. "I doubt that, in Ohio, this has ever happened - 1,000 challenges."

The Ohio Republican Party challenged 35,000 voters statewide last week after a mailing to them came back marked undeliverable.

The party said the undeliverable mail could signal voter fraud. The GOP has withdrawn 7,500 names in Fairfield, Hamilton, Montgomery and Wood counties, citing mistakes in their own computer systems.

The notices were sent yesterday, and the hearing scheduled, even though members of the elections board said they were skeptical about the validity of the challenges. They also said they were disturbed that the challenges were eating up so much time during the run-up to an election that has overtaxed the county elections staff.

Paula Ross, a Democratic member of the elections board, said the challenges "are putting this board in the position where, instead of conducting an election, we are asked to conduct some sort of inquisition of voters who are being challenged on a basis that isn't even relevant."

Mr. Borell said that the challenges, all of which appear to carry the same phrasing, may be improperly worded and therefore, subject to rejection.

He said his office will offer advice to the board about whether to reject the challenges on that basis.

"If our advice says that they are all invalid, and the board wishes to follow that advice, then there would be no need" for a hearing, Mr. Borell said.

"Assuming the wording is all identical, then the board could, if it chooses to and that's the proper legal thing to do, could knock them all out with one vote," he said.

That advisory could be issued to the board this morning, "Based upon the preliminary information that we are receiving from our prosecutor [in yesterday's meeting], I am also hoping that the challenges are withdrawn," said Bernadette Noe, chairman of the elections board and chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party.

She said she also worried about "the fear and the chilling effect" that such hearings would have just before the election.

Six people, who Ms. Noe and Ms. Ross said are thought to be sympathetic to the Republican Party, filed the challenges.

Ms. Noe said she has had no connection to nor control over those who have filed the challenges, but she said she wants to let them know she will likely oppose their challenges if a hearing is held.

Ms. Noe and Ms. Ross said they did not know where the names of targeted voters came from, but they suspected they might be among those whose recent mail from the elections board was returned to the office, marked undeliverable.

Elections officials said they were uncertain whether the challenges were made to newly registered voters or voters who have moved and did not leave a forwarding address.

Contact Fritz Wenzel at:
fritz@theblade.com
or 419-724-6134.

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