toledoblade.com --

In a setback to Ohio Republicans, a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that thousands of newly registered voters won't have to prove at hearings that they live where they are registered.

Rejecting separate appeals from the GOP and state Attorney General Jim Petro, the three-judge panel in Cincinnati said it is "mindful of the practical difficulty" of county election boards arranging and conducting thousands of hearings for all challenged voters before Tuesday's election.

David Sullivan, voter protection coordinator for the Ohio Democratic Party, said: "Ohio voters throughout the state will be able to vote on Election Day, despite the calculated political decision by the Ohio Republican Party to challenge tens of thousands of them in an effort to suppress voting, especially by minorities in Ohio."

Mark Weaver, an attorney representing the Ohio Republican Party, rejected the charge, saying the GOP is using the 50-year-old state law to prevent voter fraud.

As an example, he cited a 14-year-old boy who registered to vote at a fair in Sandusky County and whose mother saw his name in a list of voters whom the GOP challenged.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott of Cincinnati halted six elections boards from holding hearings in Cuyahoga, Franklin, Medina, Scioto, Lawrence, and Trumbull counties.

Yesterday, even though Judge Dlott granted a permanent injunction that Democrats sought and expanded her order to halt hearings in all counties where the GOP filed challenges, hearings moved forward in some counties and about 200 voters were successfully challenged.

Falling in line with yesterday's ruling, Lucas County won't hold a hearing today on more than 931 challenged voter registrations.

In Sandusky County, election officials had scheduled a hearing for 1 p.m. yesterday to hear arguments on challenges lodged by Republicans. But, they postponed the meeting for more than an hour as they awaited word on how to proceed after they learned that the ruling would apply to the entire state.

Elections officials followed the directive, but they allowed Loretta Hallock, a 31-year-old Fremont resident, who was among 67 residents initially challenged, to address the board. Although her challenge was dismissed, Ms. Hallock said she was angry that her right to vote was called into question.

"Why should we have to go through this?" said Ms. Hallock, who added that two detectives came to her home to verify her identity. "Bush is afraid he is not going to be re-elected. That's not my fault."

The board asked the sheriff to assist in verifying the applications of registered voters because elections officials did not have enough workers to handle the load before Election Day.

Andrew Lockshin, who filed voter challenges on behalf of Republicans, said the challenges were filed to "ensure the integrity of the process."

"When we look at the last election, this is a preventative measure," he said. "It has nothing in the world to do with Democrats or Republicans."

Mr. Lockshin, who also addressed the board, said there is already evidence of widespread voter fraud across the state.

"Voter fraud is a felony in the state of Ohio," he said. "We are trying to control that. I'm not alleging there is a widespread scandal of people being paid in crack to register to vote, but that could be."

Several of the voters called into question in Sandusky County had recently changed addresses. Others had errors in their addresses.

However, the challenges helped the board of elections detect that a 14-year-old boy had registered at a fair in Sandusky County to vote. His vote had been challenged because his family recently moved to nearby Seneca County.

When the boy's name was printed in the local newspaper with a list of voters being challenged, his mother called the board of elections to say that her son is not old enough to vote. Detectives also discovered the boy filled out an application after being approached by someone being paid to collect registrations forms for a group favoring the ban on gay marriages.

Saying the board had not been notified it could not hold a hearing on pre-election challenges, the Allen County Board of Elections met yesterday to address the 149 registrations challenged by local Republicans.

After a lengthy and heated public hearing, the board decided that the 114 challenged voters who it had verified could vote on Tuesday. The remaining 35 would be issued provisional ballots unless they could verify their registration by Tuesday's election.

Allen County elections director Keith Cunningham said he was going ahead with the 1 p.m. hearing because he had not been notified of the decision by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

Democrats yesterday asked Judge Dlott to reinstate any voters whose registrations are successfully challenged at hearings.

The Ohio Republican Party filed 35,000 challenges last week in 62 of 88 counties, based on letters county boards of elections sent out earlier this year to newly registered voters that were returned as "undeliverable."

But 7,500 of those challenges were withdrawn in Wood, Montgomery, Fairfield, and Hamilton counties because of a computer glitch, Mr. Weaver said, and some county elections boards chose not to accept hundreds of others.

Mr. Weaver rejected the Democrats' assertion that the GOP was trying to prevent properly registered Ohioans from voting.

Of the 23,000 Ohioans whose voter registration was challenged, all will be able to vote on Tuesday, he said.

Mr. Weaver said the GOP does not have a plan on Tuesday to challenge all of the newly registered voters who had been ordered to attend hearings.

He confirmed that GOP challengers would have lists of those who received challenges in the mail, along with lists of people who cast absentee ballots, and those who died recently.

"If they are unable to prove residency or their address, they will be allowed to vote by provisional ballot," Mr. Weaver said.

Mr. Sullivan, voter protection coordinator for the Ohio Democratic Party, said GOP challengers "better have specific and definite evidence of a problem before they start challenging" voters at the polls on Tuesday.

"We would be very concerned about the legal liability of someone who brings challenges without that good-faith belief," he said.

Mr. Weaver said the GOP would fight any court ruling to allow voters whose registration was successfully challenged at hearings to vote using a regular ballot. He said those voters should be given provisional ballots.

Contact James Drew at:
jdrew@theblade.com
or 614-221-0496.

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