WASHINGTON (AFP) — A Republican attempt to challenge as many as 200,000 new voter registrations in Ohio was blocked Friday when the Supreme Court overturned a ruling requiring the state's election officials to flag names that do not match those on government databases.
Ohio is a battleground state in the hotly contested November 4 election, after handing George W. Bush the presidency in 2004 with a margin of nearly 119,000 votes.
Republicans had argued that Ohio's Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, had violated federal election laws and was "actively working to conceal fraudulent activity" by failing to alert local polling stations when a discrepancy was found between new registrations and state records.
Brunner said the "politically-motivated lawsuit" threatened to force eligible voters to cast provisional ballots, which are not counted until 10 days after the election and are typically the subject of intense legal wrangling over whether they should be honored.
More than 600,000 new voters have registered in Ohio this year and a majority are expected to vote for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Brunner said that as many as one in three of the registration forms could have some type of discrepancy.
But she said many of those were due to "misstated technical information or glitches in databases" and insisted that the databases were "never intended to be a litmus test for an Ohioan's right to vote."
The Supreme Court did not rule on whether Brunner should be required to flag registrations with discrepancies. Instead, it tossed out the case because it ruled the Ohio Republican Party did not have the right to sue the state over whether it is implementing federal election rules.
Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett expressed frustration that the case was dismissed based upon a "technicality" and noted that "two courts and numerous judges have accused her of failing to provide an adequate system of verifying that information."
"As far as I'm concerned, Secretary Brunner is actively working to conceal fraudulent activity in this election," Bennett said in a statement.
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's campaign also decried the decision.
"It remains our belief that American citizens should be guaranteed that their legitimate votes are not wiped away by illegally cast ballots," said campaign manager Rick Davis.
"What is no longer in question is the partisan nature of Jennifer Brunner's efforts to minimize the level of fairness and transparency in this election."
Brunner insisted that the state's bipartisan election officials would ensure a fair election.
"We filed this appeal to protect all Ohio voters from illegal challenges and barriers that unfairly silence the votes of some to the advantage of others," she said in a statement.
"I ask all involved to stop the legal maneuvers that unnecessarily shake public confidence."
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