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01.17.08
ACLU Challenges Cuyahoga’s Unequal Voting Technology in Federal Court
New Voting System Unlawful, Will Result in More Uncounted Ballots
CLEVELAND- The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Ohio filed
a lawsuit against state election officials in federal court today
challenging the use of unequal, inaccurate and inadequate voting
technology in Ohio’s most populous county. Today’s legal action seeks to
block Cuyahoga County’s recent shift from using electronic voting
machines to a system that lacks the ability to provide voters with
notice of balloting errors and an opportunity to correct such mistakes.
According to the ACLU, the use of these machines violates the
Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Voting Rights Act.
“Every voting system – paper ballot or not – must give voters a chance
to fix a mistake. Many votes will go uncounted if voters cannot verify
that their ballots have been filled out correctly,” said Meredith Bell-Platts,
a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “Mandating an
unequal voting system is intolerable and will inevitably lead to
preventable disfranchisement. With Ohio’s presidential primary only
weeks away, Cuyahoga County must abandon its deeply flawed and
unreliable voting technology in order to protect the rights of every
voter.”
Last month, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner cast a tie-breaking vote
that forced Cuyahoga County to adopt a central count optical scan system
(CCOS) voting system, in which paper ballots are immediately shipped to
a central location where they are “read” by an optical scan machine.
Under this arrangement, voters are given no opportunity to correct a
mistake on their ballots. However, optical scan voting systems are
available with counting features that provide error notification to
voters at polling places. When using these systems – that are already
used by several counties statewide – the voter inserts his or her ballot
directly into the counting equipment, which can be programmed to reject
any ballot with an overvote or that cannot be read. A voter with a
rejected ballot then has an opportunity to correct the vote. This error
notification substantially reduces the risk that an individual’s vote
will not be counted. Brunner and Cuyahoga County rejected this method.
“A system that protects every vote equally is not a luxury, it is a
constitutional right,” said Carrie Davis, staff counsel with the ACLU of
Ohio. “It is unacceptable for some Ohio voters to have the opportunity
to identify and fix errors on their ballots, while other voters do not.
The technology is available to correct this flaw and there is no reason
to ignore this problem. In addition to its constitutional violations,
the new system presents an untold logistical and financial disaster on
the eve of the 2008 elections.”
Ohio adopted voting technology that provided notice to voters in 2006.
In the 2004 case, Stewart v. Blackwell, the ACLU challenged
punch card and central count optical scans that did not provide the
voters with notification of ballot problems. Research has shown that if
the voter is given an opportunity to correct his or her ballot, the
number of uncounted votes greatly dissipates.
The case is ACLU v. Brunner and is in the U.S. District Court
for the Northern District of Ohio.
Attorneys in the case are Bell-Platts, Laughlin McDonald and Neil
Bradley of the ACLU, Davis of the ACLU of Ohio, and cooperating
attorneys Paul Moke and Richard Saphire. The lawsuit was brought against
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, the Cuyahoga County Board of
Commissioners, and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on behalf of
the ACLU of Ohio and voters across the county.
Today’s legal complaint is available at:
www.acluohio.org
More information on the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project is available at:
www.votingrights.org
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Read the
Complaint.
Go to our Voting
Rights page for additional background information
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