SwiftVets.com

[Ohio Voter]

Blackeye State, thanks to Brunner
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081019/COL05/810190314/1009/col05


The phone has been ringing off the hook at the Green County Sheriff's Department in Xenia, and those calls are not about barking dogs or runaway cats. They're about stray voters.


Since Sheriff Gene Fischer asked to see suspect voter registrations at the county board of elections, "There have been numerous phone calls, and not one has been negative," said Capt. Eric Spicer.

Democrats howled about "voter suppression." But contrary to some news reports, the sheriff did not ask for personal information about voters, Spicer said.


"We had more than one case where citizens reported to him that they heard something during the registration process," Spicer said. "It sounded like the checks and balances were absent and someone was taking advantage of the process."

When a court ordered verification of the registrations, the sheriff withdrew his public-records request. But then on Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that 200,000 registrations that don't match driver's license or Social Security records do not have to be checked for fraud.

Welcome to Ohio - where a voter-fraud brush fire is making the Buckeye State into the Blackeye State, thanks to Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

Brunner has managed to out-litigate Florida by igniting lawsuits even before Election Day.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that she was wrong to block Republican poll watchers during early voting.

In another case, the same court unanimously rejected her attempt to deny absentee ballot requests by McCain voters. "We have heard people were very confused and we got a lot of calls," said John Williams, director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections. "It created a lot of unnecessary confusion over something pretty petty."

And before the Supreme Court decided in her favor, Brunner was rebuked by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Her unusually liberal interpretation of Ohio election laws allowed a one-week window to register and vote instantly, without the usual 30-day cushion. ACORN and other left-wing groups used Brunner's voting free-for-all to round up thousands of Barack Obama voters from homeless shelters, soup kitchens and bus stops.

One voter said he was registered 73 times by ACORN. Others were caught fraudulently voting. And Williams says thousands of registrations are duplicates.

When Republicans asked Brunner to match registrations against Bureau of Motor Vehicle and Social Security records, as required by her own manual, Brunner said it was not her job, and even went to court to avoid it.

Apparently, she may get her way. In Brunner vs. Republican Party, the Supreme Court ruled that private litigants (Republican Party) are not allowed to sue under the Help America Vote Act, and said, "We express no opinion on the question whether HAVA is being properly implemented."

But the Sixth Circuit court's 9-6 majority opinion had a pretty strong opinion about Brunner and the way she has mangled Ohio's election.

It said she offered "no factual support for her arguments," and was "ear-splittingly silent" in support for her claims that checking for fraud is too difficult and interferes with the election.

In fact, among 660,000 new registrations, Brunner found 200,000 that are suspect - more than Ohio's 118,000-margin of victory for Bush in 2004. But she refused to identify the mismatched registrations so local boards of elections can investigate them before Nov. 4.

The Sixth Circuit said:

Congress passed HAVA for two purposes: make voting easier and prevent fraud. Under Brunner's rules, "HAVA's tools for ferreting out voter fraud would become an empty gesture."

Brunner's policy does not "remotely further the antifraud objective of the law."

"The established practice in this case is the one the state used in the last national election, not the secretary's innovation." And, "The secretary's matching system does not enable anyone to do anything with the information it collects."

For reasons she did not explain, "The secretary of state apparently chose to deactivate at least part of the process, if not all of the process. ... In particular, she concedes that at some point she stopped communicating with the county boards about mismatches."

In other words, Brunner turned off the fraud-checker. She dragged her feet, then claimed it was too late to investigate.

The Green County sheriff was not barking up the wrong tree. Evidence of fraud by Obama supporters is undeniable.

And if they get away with it, Ohio will be left with the lingering suspicion that Brunner helped ACORN stuff the ballot box with illegal votes.

To comment, contact Enquirer columnist Peter Bronson at 513-768-8301 or pbronson@enquirer.com.