Posted on 10/10/2008 10:47:42 PM PDT by Gator_that_eats_Dems
CINCINNATI—A federal appeals court sided with Ohio's top elections official Friday in her running battle with Republicans over how to verify the eligibility of newly registered voters.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a federal judge's order a day earlier that Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner institute the means to verify voter registration information and make it available to Ohio's 88 county election boards.
Brunner argued that it would take two to three days to create the necessary computer programs, and that nothing in the Help America Vote Act required her to do what the lower court ordered. A three-judge panel of the appeals court agreed in a split decision.
"With less than a month until the election, and less than two weeks until the beginning of counting absentee ballots, the secretary cannot be required to undertake the extensive reprogramming and other changes to the election mechanics without complete disruption of the electoral process in Ohio," the majority said in its opinion. "The irreparable harm to the voting public caused by the district court's order is equally clear."
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith in Columbus ordered Brunner to verify new registrations by matching information on them against a database maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration. He also ordered her to establish a process by which the county boards can access the information generated by the checks.
Brunner praised Friday's decision, saying there are sufficient systems in place to verify new-voter registration.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Start demanding a re-vote NOW. If force.
If we let them steal their way to absolute power, there will be no turning back. Short of 50,000,000 of us moving to Texas and declaring it a Republic.
Any comments on a direct appeal to the circuit Supreme Court Justice for the Sixth, John Paul Stevens?
It doesn't matter if it's a sham court.
APPEAL IT NOW INSIDER DEMORAT JUDGE IS STEALING THE LECTION IN OHIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
See post 100 about Bright’s appointment to the case.
Way beyond my knowledge, but en banc is a whole lot faster.
It's too big to fail!!!
(sound familiar?)
100,000 is no more a wild made up number than the final tally will be.....
It appears we have this election’s Florida Supreme Court.
Thank You.
VOTE EARLY.
VOTE OFTEN.
Not quite yet.
Oblama has armies of lawyers waiting in every state to file lawsuits to contest election results should McCain win the vote.
Florida will be a backyard sideshow by comparison.
Si se puede!
way?
6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
The sixteen active circuit judges are
Danny J. Boggs, Chief Judge, of Louisville, Kentucky;
Boyce F. Martin, Jr. of Louisville, Kentucky;
Alice M. Batchelder of Medina, Ohio;
Martha Craig Daughtrey of Nashville, Tennessee;
Karen Nelson Moore of Cleveland, Ohio;
Ransey Guy Cole, Jr. of Columbus, Ohio;
Eric L. Clay of Detroit, Michigan;
Ronald L. Gilman of Memphis, Tennessee;
Julia Smith Gibbons of Memphis, Tennessee;
John M. Rogers of Lexington, Kentucky;
Jeffrey S. Sutton of Columbus, Ohio;
Deborah L. Cook of Akron, Ohio;
David W. McKeague of Lansing, Michigan,
Richard Allen Griffin of Traverse City, Michigan,
Raymond M. Kethledge of Troy, Michigan, and
Helene White of Deteroit Michigan.
The court is also fortunate to have eight experienced senior judges, all of whom continue to carry a substantial caseload:
Damon J. Keith of Detroit, Michigan;
Gilbert S. Merritt, Jr. of Nashville, Tennessee;
Cornelia G. Kennedy of Detroit, Michigan;
Ralph B. Guy, Jr. of Ann Arbor, Michigan,
James L. Ryan of Detroit, Michigan;
Alan E. Norris of Columbus, Ohio,
Richard F. Suhrheinrich of Lansing, Michigan and
Eugene E. Siler, Jr. of London, Kentucky
Ohio’s top election official accused a federal judge Friday of injecting “disorder” into the presidential race by ordering her to purge the state’s voter rolls of potentially fraudulent voters.
On Thursday, Smith issued a court order compelling Brunner to purge Ohio’s voter rolls of fraudulent registrants or at least allow the state’s 88 counties to individually purge their portions of the state’s centralized voter registration database. Although Brunner has cross-checked the database against records from both the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Social Security Administration, Smith ruled that she stopped short of weeding out the mismatched names.
“Defendant admitted that the county boards of election had no way to search or identify the mismatches,” Smith wrote in his order. “Defendant further indicated that the State, like the county boards of elections, at this time, also does not have the technological capabilities to run a search to identify or isolate mismatches.”
According to Smith, Brunner initially claimed she would need two or three days to program the database into compliance. But she told the appeals court Friday that it “would require at least four to five days.”
The time frame is important because Oct. 16 is the deadline for challenging the authenticity of absentee ballots in Ohio. On Oct. 25, each ballot can be separated from its envelope, which contains the voter’s name and address, thereby precluding disqualification of the ballot for fraud.
Brunner admitted her “database has a technological limitation.” She explained that “the database cannot generate a list or spreadsheet of every voter record containing a mismatched entry.”
GOP wrote in its court brief. “It is the Secretary who seeks to disenfranchise Ohio voters by seeking to nullify a law that prevents fraudulent voting.”
The panel scolded the state GOP for waiting until just before the election to challenge the process, saying, "(The party) itself created the sudden rush for determination, and we are not prepared to reward it for forcing all parties into this unenviable position."
Judge Richard Allen Griffin dissented, saying the three-judge panel should not have acted so quickly and that Brunner's "lack of concern for the integrity of the elections process is astounding and deeply disturbing."
Meanwhile, the Greene County sheriff backed off an investigation of new voters in his county yesterday after Democrats complained that it was a blatant attempt to discourage voting, especially among black college students.
In a conference call yesterday with reporters nationwide, Davis argued that Brunner's decisions plus her advice to counties not to allow observers of in-person absentee votes are "dumbfounding."
That is becoming very clear. It's really tough watching our country slip away. The fix was in since the democrat primaries. Even the powerful Clintons couldn't stop him. There was a lot of voter fraud allegations during the primaries that never even were investigated. I will never acknowledge that sleeper as my president. If the Farakan video didn't turn average American folks off to Obama, then there's just no hope.
- Joseph Stalin
Thanks for the quote. It is worth repeating.
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