The Supreme Court today declined to go along with a request by the Ohio Republican Party that could have threatened the ability of thousands of new Ohio voters to cast ballots in next month's election. In this unsigned opinion the Court vacated a temporary restraining order that would have required Ohio election officials to release some 200,000 voter names that don't match existing data. Republicans sought the order to avert what they see as widespread voter fraud and require voters with mismatched names to cast provisional ballots. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner objected that the 11th-hour Republican effort would confuse voters and disrupt the election, when the mismatches were likely caused by clerical errors.
The high court expressed no opinion on the merits of the dispute, but said the Republican party was "not sufficiently likely" to prevail on an issue of standing in the case to justify continuing the restraining order.
Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who runs the Election Law Blog, applauded the Court's action as a deterrent to 11th-hour challenges aimed at disrupting elections. "If cases reasonably could have been brought earlier, but are brought just before the election, courts should be wary of entertaining such claims to interfere with the upcoming election," he said. Kathryn Kolbert of the liberal People for the American Way agreed. "The facts are clear: there isn’t a shred of evidence of organized voter fraud in this country, and GOP efforts to prevent it only risk disenfranchising American citizens who have every right to cast a ballot. The 'voter fraud' fraud has been pushed by the right wing to help justify draconian restrictions on the right to vote. We should all be grateful that the Court managed to look through the deceit and exaggeration that has dominated this discussion."
I love watching the liberals who now condemn last-minute litigation by the Republicans, condemn lower courts that give them TROs messing with state law, and praise the Supreme Court or any circuit court that lifts such a TRO.
Weren't these same people the ones filing lawsuits the last time, praising the TROs, and howling when courts lifted them?
Hypocrites.
Posted by: cynic | October 17, 2008 at 09:29 PM
The deceit in this matter is with those who make a mockery of our election process and my vote. In this case that is ACORN. In my state of Illinois the Chicago Democratic Party has consistently been involved in vote fraud and anybody stuck in a "truth machine" would have to admit it.
More of the same. Did all of the Justices vote on this or was in "in the hands" of a single judge with the other Justices automatically approving this decision? Anybody know the answer?
Posted by: Frank Goudy | October 17, 2008 at 07:09 PM
MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD in November, because in many states there is no safeguard? Our voter system has become compromised because of the 13 to 30 million illegal aliens in our nation. Do you really think that our corrupted government is going to give you accurate numbers of illegal aliens. I blame both parties, the Liberal-Socialist judges that have allowed this to happen, because anybody, just ANYBODY can say they have citizenship status?
With ACORN violating our laws, and other ominous entities, how can we expect an honest vote in two weeks. Many states do not have the resources to check, who has a legal right to vote? What's going to stop millions of illegal foreign nationals from uttering perjury, that can be located in any Post Office, Department of Motor Vehicles or even in a rural court house. As an Independent is it even worth voting, when our US constitution has become just a piece of paper by Liberal judges.
Read what Rep. Tom Tancredo (CO) Interview at YALE UNIVERSITY about the illegal immigrant occupation of our country: http://thepolitic.org/content/view/109/ IT WILL CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT THIS EVER INCREASING PLAGUE.
Some five million fraudulent home mortgages are in the hands of illegal aliens, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The middle class already overburdened with war appropriation funds, is still force to pay for the education, free health-care and Federal, state welfare handouts for illegal criminals and millions of illegal alien families. SIGN UP FOR THE SAVE ACT(H.R.4088) enforcement 'ONLY' law at www.numbersusa.com.
SIGN JUDICIAL WATCH, A LEGAL ORGANIZATIONS PETITION, TO RESCIND ALL 'SANCTUARY CITIES & STATES. www.sanctuarybusters.org / source. www.numbersusa.com to Petition the SAVE ACT. For immigration facts not propaganda or lies,
Posted by: Carracticus | October 17, 2008 at 04:05 PM