U.S. Court Allows Republican Poll Challengers in Ohio (Update5)

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) Republican challengers may be present at polling places in Ohio to contest the eligibility of voters in today's presidential election, a U.S. appeals court has ruled.

A three-judge panel this morning overturned two lower court rulings which held that such challenges unduly burdened citizens' right to vote. U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens rejected a request to delay enforcement of the decision by the Cincinnati-based U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The appeals court ruling allows thousands of Republicans to challenge the eligibility of newly registered Democrats in Ohio, which has 20 electoral votes and is considered a key state in the race between President George W. Bush, the Republican incumbent, and Senator John Kerry, his Democratic challenger. The appeals panel said it had to balance citizens' rights to vote freely with Ohio's ability to root out fraudulent voters.

``There is a strong public interest in allowing every registered voter to vote freely,'' the court wrote in a 2-1 decision. ``There is also a strong public interest in permitting legitimate statutory processes to operate to preclude voting by those who are not entitled to vote.''

Ohio Democratic Voter Protection Coordinator David Sullivan issued a statement calling the appeals court decision ``unfortunate.'' He said Democrats ``were prepared for this outcome and will have voting rights volunteers at the polls to defend the rights of voters.''

`Chaos'

In one of two concurring opinions by the appeals court, Circuit Judge James L. Ryan said that in neither of the cases before the panel have the plaintiffs shown that ``the intimidation, chaos, confusion, `pandemonium,' and inordinate delay they allege will occur tomorrow is `actual or imminent.'''

Ryan reasoned that, without proof of such confusion, the plaintiffs, two Cincinnati voters, didn't have standing to bring a lawsuit.

Circuit Judge R. Guy Cole disagreed, asserting in his dissenting opinion that, ``Permitting hundreds of election challengers to challenge voters at particular polls will promote chaos and uncertainty; it will divert the attention of election judges; and most importantly, it will create a level of voter frustration that could deter citizens from exercising their constitutional right to vote.''

Cole also said in his opinion that the challengers, ``for the first time since the civil rights era, seek to target precincts that have a majority African-American population, and without any legal standards or restrictions, challenge the voter qualifications of people as they stand waiting to exercise their fundamental right to vote.''

Legal Battles

Cole was appointed to the appeals court by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Ryan was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican.

The 6th Circuit decision overturned rulings by federal judges in Cincinnati and Akron, Ohio.

The appeals court ruling early this morning followed a day of legal battles yesterday in three federal courtrooms over the ability of Republicans to challenge Democratic voters in Ohio polling places. Ohio, along with Pennsylvania, Florida and a handful of other states, have been a focus of the Bush and Kerry campaigns for weeks.

U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott in Cincinnati and U.S. District Judge John Adams in Akron ruled yesterday that Republican workers in polling places threatened to create chaos today and intimidate voters.

Race-Based Challenges

In a separate ruling in Newark, New Jersey, U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise barred the Ohio Republican Party from using a list of 23,000 newly registered voters to challenge their ability to cast ballots.

Debevoise ruled that Republicans violated decrees he issued in the 1980s that barred political parties from using race or ethnicity as a factor in challenging the integrity of voter registrations.

The case is Summit County Democratic Central and Executive Committee v. Blackwell, No. 04-4311, and Spencer v. Blackwell, No. 04-4312, 6th Circuit.