Ohio Voter Suppression News

Ohio Court Limits 'Challengers' at Polling Stations

In Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell issued a permanent injunction barring multiple challengers from being stationed at polling places. The ruling, if upheld, would force the Republicans to cut back the thousands of poll watchers they plan to send to voting locations Tuesday.

It's that "if upheld" that is the sticking point.

The dirty tricks haven't really started yet.

Whatever the motive, election officials say voters are genuinely confused by the misinformation. In the Cleveland area, election officials said they received a spate of complaints after voters began receiving phone calls incorrectly informing them their polling places had changed. In addition, unknown volunteers began showing up at voters' doors illegally offering to collect and deliver completed absentee ballots to the election office.

Jane Platten of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections said officials had not identified who is behind the tricks. ``We've never seen anything like this before, where there seems to be a concerted effort to give voters misinformation,'' she said.

Other
tricks include:

• telling people they can't vote if they haven't paid child support, having undercover "angry voters" yell out that lines are three hours long to discourage people from waiting and having aggressive supporters yell at voters who want to choose the opponent.
  
  
• Nonpartisan election-protection groups and attorneys recruited by both the Bush and Kerry campaigns to patrol tight states also said groups are expected to send unregistered voters into crowded polling places to slow down the already long lines.
  
  
• In Ohio's Franklin County, both registered Democrats and Republicans have been receiving phone calls from phony Board of Elections workers telling them that their polling places have been changed, said election officials.
  
  
• Ohio Republican Party spokesman Jeff Flint added that Ohio Republicans have received calls telling them their absentee ballots will be picked up by election workers — a process that's illegal.
  
  
• In West Dayton, Ohio, registered Democrats received calls reminding them to vote on Nov. 5 — three days after the election, according to Hagel.

In Lake County, Ohio, [as reported earlier below] some voters received a memo on bogus Board of Elections letterhead informing voters who registered through Democratic and NAACP drives that they could not vote. Election officials referred the matter to the sheriff.