A key win for Mary Jo Kilroy:
A federal judge in Columbus ruled Thursday that disputed provisional ballots must be counted in one of the nation’s final undecided congressional races. …
About 1,000 ballots are in dispute in the House race because of defects such as voters failing to both print and sign their names.
Marbley’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed last week by supporters of Stivers, who argued the ballots were invalid because they were missing either a printed name or a signature, or the two were interchanged on ballot envelopes.
In his ruling, the judge said the plaintiffs never disputed that the voters who used the provisional ballots were eligible, properly registered and voted in the correct precinct, and that not counting the ballots would disenfranchise legitimate voters. His ruling sides with Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, who had said the ballots should be counted because the problems were due to poll worker error.
Punctuating his ruling with a reading of Ohio’s voter fraud statute, Marbley called unfounded the plaintiffs’ contention that allowing the disputed ballots to be counted would promote fraud. He said election officials have ways to double-check the validity of all the disputed votes.
These thousand ballots are from Franklin County, the population center of the district and Kilroy’s base. It’s especially heartening to see the judge directly eviscerate classic GOP phony fraud claims. Marbley stayed his ruling, however, so that the Republicans can appeal. Presumably the Sixth Circuit will issue a ruling soon, hopefully affirming the district court.
In other OH-15 news, rural, red Union County completed its recount and Steve Stivers’s lead moved up to 479 votes. But that hardly seems like enough – there are apparently some 27,000 ballots left to be counted in Franklin, so it’s pretty difficult to see how Stivers will hold on. (Some of those ballots are provisionals which will be rejected, though.) In a way, this race is almost the inverse of WA-08, where early returns are liable to be reversed as the tally progresses.
I feel good about this one and the Minnesota Senate race.
taking so long, why haven’t they finished counting the ballots? They’re taking longer than Alaksa and they’re about 1/100th the size.
It’s the provisionals. Remember, we are talking 27,000 provos vs a few hundred overseas absentees.
Let’s say that you are registered to vote in tiny rural Vinton county down in Appalachian Ohio.
But a few days before the election, you move to Columbus. On Election Day you go to the new polling place where you now live. You properly cast a provisional ballot.
The Franklin county BoE has to contact the Vinton BoE who confirms that yes, you were legally registered there. Franklin County gets the verification and counts your vote.
Ah, but what if you didn’t have any acceptable ID (rent receipt, utility bill etc) with you showing your new address when you voted on Election Day? The Franklin BoE STILL has to confirm your registration with your old county AND they have to hold aside your ballot and give you ten business days to come into the Franklin BoE with some form of ID and THEN they can count your ballot… maybe.
There are huge numbers of college voters (not just OSU) (potentially) in this District, many of which have to cast provo ballots. In many Ohio High Schools there are voter registration programs for anyone who turns 18, but a LOT of college students wanted to vote for Obama and if they didn’t do early voting/registration update, they had to vote provo. Those ballots will overwhemingly favor Kilroy.
We’re gonna win this one.
I see these GOP court moves as very much a “rear guard action.” They know they’re gonna lose. They’re just delaying the inevitable. Judge Brunner, our SoS has won these battles this season before both the State Supremes and SCOTUS, but the Appeals Court could go either way. There are a number of GOPers on that crew.
But in the end, “truth will out.”
Oh, and, yes, it never should have been this close…
If there were 27k ballots still out in every district, that would be like 15 million votes left to be counted in the country.
Were they waiting for that ruling on 1000 ballots to count the 27k?
It just makes no sense.
She’s obviously a weak candidate, with this being her second campaign. That said, I think her chances are 50-50, which may be higher than Franken’s chance in Minnesota.