Last-Minute Ohio Directive Could Trash Legal Votes And Swing The Election

Now this is my first post in the Political Madness forum, so let's see how this flies over....

A last-minute directive issued by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) could invalidate legal provisional ballots. Ohio is widely viewed as the most critical state for both presidential campaigns and — with some polls showing a close race — the 11th-hour move could swing the entire election. The directive, issued Friday, lays out the requirements for submitting a provisional ballot. The directive includes a form which puts the burden on the voter to correctly record the form of ID provided to election officials. Husted also instructed election officials that if the form is not filled out correctly by a voter, the ballot should not be counted.

[url=http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/11/03/1134981/last-minute-ohio-directive-could-trash-legal-votes-and-swing-the-election/?mobile=nc]Sauce[/ url]

So since I'm pretty much decided, I want opinions from both sides on this issue...maybe come to an agreement that this guy is a Romney shill and his presidency is pretty much bought and sold.

Originally posted by TheToastmanCometh
Now this is my first post in the Political Madness forum, so let's see how this flies over....

A last-minute directive issued by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) could invalidate legal provisional ballots. Ohio is widely viewed as the most critical state for both presidential campaigns and — with some polls showing a close race — the 11th-hour move could swing the entire election. The directive, issued Friday, lays out the requirements for submitting a provisional ballot. The directive includes a form which puts the burden on the voter to correctly record the form of ID provided to election officials. Husted also instructed election officials that if the form is not filled out correctly by a voter, the ballot should not be counted.

[url=http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/11/03/1134981/last-minute-ohio-directive-could-trash-legal-votes-and-swing-the-election/?mobile=nc]Sauce[/ url]

So since I'm pretty much decided, I want opinions from both sides on this issue...maybe come to an agreement that this guy is a Romney shill and his presidency is pretty much bought and sold.

So what you are saying is if i don't fully fill out my voting form (listing the id i used in the line that I am supposed to put it) my ballot won't be counted because it isn't fully filled out according to the simply rules set forth that I just fill in the blanks?

Seriously, if I won't follow the directions why would it be accepted? If a rule is that I have to mark my presidential choice on a piece of paper, yet I don't do that and instead sing my presidential choice as a show-tune my vote wouldn't be accepted either because I didn't follow the directions.

Typical. You ignore the point.
Voting should not be subject to partisan legislation.

Originally posted by ziggystrange
Typical. You ignore the point.
Voting should not be subject to partisan legislation.

No I hit the point. The point is, it won't affect anything.

There should be NO VOTER LAWS CHANGED within the same year as a major election such as we have now. There was plenty of time in the past to consider changing laws. There will be plenty of time to consider changing laws after the election. Doing so basically during an election is game playing and game changing that is dirty tricks on either side. This behavior is outrageous. I realize that finding impartial people is virtually impossible, but gerrymandering districts when your party has the majority, changing voter laws, misprinting voter information (really, no proof reading?) such as a recent bulletin that informed English speaking voters the election was on Nov. 6th while Spanish speaking voters were informed the election was on Nov. 8th...... this is beneath our process as Americans and those responsible for these kinds of games should be penalized heavily. This interferes with the very basis of our system. I also don't believe in electronic voting without paper trail. Seriously, considering how much paper is used in our country every single day, having easily read and used ballots is worth the extra trees. My understanding is that the Canadian ballots have no problem with "hanging chads" in that there are Large circles to block out for each candidate. No misreading the intent. Haven't we had enough time to get our elections done efficiently? A few hundred years? Dirty Politics.

reply to post by TheToastmanCometh


If this were to be enacted, then it would swing the vote more in favor of the Democrats. I read recently in the Plain Dealer that the Republicans were in the lead concerning mail-in only ballots.

That would like throwing the baby out with the bath water. But politicians aren't the smartest of people...which makes us what? Considering that we vote them in.

Well, this is a rather elitist and bigoted thread.

What you are saying is only Democrat voters are too stupid to comprehend the instructions and properly complete a ballot?

Here is the problem. This 'order' denies a voter any chance to resolve issues with identification on the spot when requesting a provisional ballot.

Husted directive also appears to be in violation of Ohio law. The lawsuit states:

Ohio Rev. Code § 3505.181(B)(6) provides that, once a voter casting a provisional ballot proffers identification, “the appropriate local election official shall record the type of identification provided, the social security number information, the fact that the affirmation was executed, or the fact that the individual declined to execute such an affirmation and include that information with the transmission of the ballot . . . .”

Ohio law also “ensures that any questions regarding a voter’s identification are resolved on the spot or, consistent with due process, the voter is informed that he or she needs to provide additional information to the board of elections. This protects the integrity of the voting process, and provides a reasonable opportunity to resolve deficiencies.”

Husted's last minute directive changes this and puts the burden on the voter, which greatly increases the chances that legal provisional ballots will be discarded.

The court has given Husted until Monday to respond to the lawsuit, and said that it would resolve the dispute before provisional ballots are counted on November 17.

Cleveland Reader

It is also a direct violation of the law.

I should have worded the OP a bit more clearly.

Shows me for creating posts at one am.

Anyways...

originally posted by WTFover:
Well, this is a rather elitist and bigoted thread. What you are saying is only Democrat voters are too stupid to comprehend the instructions and properly complete a ballot?

I didn't mean it as a slight to Romney in general (even though I was in a total Romney hating mood), but to the GOP in general because they are using such tricks as these to garner more voters to their side, and what I got from the article was that if this law passed, Mittens would probably get the presidency.

True, you could replace Republicans and John Husted with Democrats and a Democrat Secretary of State (state level), but it leaves the point that politicians don't care about the voters, just the votes and how many they can get than their opponent.

It's like a b@stardized Pokemon game.

originally posted by EvenParanoidsHaveEnemies:
So what you are saying is if i don't fully fill out my voting form (listing the id i used in the line that I am supposed to put it) my ballot won't be counted because it isn't fully filled out according to the simply rules set forth that I just fill in the blanks? Seriously, if I won't follow the directions why would it be accepted? If a rule is that I have to mark my presidential choice on a piece of paper, yet I don't do that and instead sing my presidential choice as a show-tune my vote wouldn't be accepted either because I didn't follow the directions.

Well, what I got was, say you have pretty bad handwriting, try as you might to correct it, and because of the illegible script it gets tossed out. I think the same applies to if you accidently fill the wrong part.

Your hard earned vote for your candidate gets thrown away and it doesn't count, but then again, who votes in corrupt elections?