Ohio Secretary Of State Given Extension On Voter Database

This story was written by Rebecca Black, The Post

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Friday that Ohio Secretary of State did not have to reprogram the statewide voter registration database before the end of the day.

The Supreme Court did not rule on whether Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunners office is using the Help America Vote Act correctly.

We express no opinion on the question whether (Help America Vote Act) is being properly implemented, according to unsigned court documents.

The Help America Vote Act requires the secretary of state to create a system to match new voter registrations to the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles and Social Security Administration databases.

The court unanimously ruled that the Republican Party, a private entity, was not likely to win their argument. They had argued that the U.S. Congress had authorized the lower court to enforce a claim on the Help America Vote Act by a private entity such as themselves.

Although Brunner was not made to comply with the lower courts rulings to reprogram the statewide voter registration database, she said Tuesday that her office is trying to make the mismatches available to county boards of elections, according to news releases.

David Myhal, of New Albany, filed a lawsuit against Brunner later on Friday in the Ohio Supreme Court. He asked the court to compel the secretary of state to give the county boards of elections the ability to identify mismatches before any votes are counted. Absentee ballots can be removed from their identifying envelopes as early as Saturday.

The disagreement between Brunners office and the Ohio Republican Party lies in what should be done when voter registrations do not match these databases.

Brunners office contends the Help America Vote Act only requires identifying the mismatched registrations, according to court documents.

The Ohio Republican Party believes that the Act requires notifying the county boards of elections of the inconsistencies so that the problems can be cleared up.