U.S. Justice Department files brief in provisional ballot case
10/18/2004, 6:05 p.m. ET
The Associated Press    

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal judge on Monday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Michigan Democrats in an effort to get the state to count provisional ballots cast by voters in the wrong polling precincts on Nov. 2.

      
The Justice Department argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that the Help America Vote Act does not give individuals the right to sue if they believe their state has violated the law passed by Congress in 2002. Rather, those citizens should go through a state administrative complaint process or rely on a U.S. attorney to file suit, government attorneys said.

The Justice Department also opposed Democrats' request that citizens who appear in the right city, township or village should have their votes counted regardless of whether they show up in the correct precinct.

"American elections have long been precinct-based," Justice Department attorneys wrote in court papers. "A well-understood premise of such a system is that a voter must appear at the correct polling place — the one to which the voter was assigned, and on whose rolls the voter appears — or else the voter will not be able to vote."

Michigan Democrats, the NAACP and voter-rights groups want Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land to rescind her instructions that local election officials not count provisional ballots for voters who show up at the wrong precinct. They say it should be enough that voters vote in the jurisdiction — city, township or village — where they live.

Democrats on Monday accused U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft of using the lawsuit as a "political ploy."

"The Department of Justice's eleventh-hour request reeks of partisan mischief and is an abuse of our justice system," said Mark Brewer, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

U.S. District Judge David Lawson is expected to issue a ruling soon. The state has requested a decision by Wednesday so it has time to train election officials if they need to change procedures.