The Center filed suit on behalf of Ohio voters to stop Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell from proceeding with the State’s plan for handling provisional ballots in the upcoming November 2 election.
In addition to the law firms of Donald J. McTigue and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, the Brennan Center is joined by a number of plaintiffs on behalf of Ohio’s voters: The League of Women Voters of Ohio; Ohio AFL-CIO; People for the American Way Foundation; ACORN; Ohio Council 8, AFSCME; The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; A. Philip Randolph Institute; The Coalition of Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, and Project Vote.
Plaintiffs have asked the federal court for the Northern District of Ohio to declare that Ohio’s rules for casting and counting provisional ballots violate federal law. The complaint also asks the court to require Secretary Blackwell to “promptly issue a new directive to all Ohio county boards of elections, instructing them to issue and count provisional ballots in accordance with the Help America Vote Act.”
Plaintiffs argue that Secretary of State Blackwell’s directives concerning provisional ballots would illegally take away the vote from two classes of eligible voters: (1) first time voters who face special new ID requirements on Election Day; and (2) citizens who vote in the wrong polling place.
On October 14, 2004, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio held, in another case raising some of the same issues, that Ohio’s refusal to allow voters who appear to vote in the wrong precinct to cast provisional ballots violates federal law. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed that ruling on October 26, 2004.
In an opinion dated October 21, 2004, the Northern District court dismissed plaintiffs’ claims with respect to voters subject to new identification requirements, after interpreting the Ohio rules to allow such voters to orally recite their driver’s license or last four digits of their social security numbers instead of providing documentary proof of identity. A voter who provides such a “numerical identifier” will have her provisional ballot counted.
Principal Legal Documents
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Complaint (10/06/2004)
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Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction (10/06/2004)
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Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (10/13/2004)
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Plaintiffs’ Reply Memo in Support of Application for Preliminary Injunction (10/13/2004)
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Plaintiffs’ Supplemental Memo in Further Support of Motion for Preliminary Injunction (10/18/2004)
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Federal Court Decision (10/21/2004)
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Plaintiffs’ Notice of Appeal (10/22/2004)
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Plaintiffs-Appellants’ 6th Circuit Brief (10/26/2004)
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Final Judgment (10/27/2004)
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