Judge temporarily halts hearings on Ohio voter registration challenges
Judge temporarily halts hearings on Ohio voter registration challenges
COLUMBUS (AP) -- One voter picks up letters at the post office because trucks kept hitting his mailbox. Another serves in Iraq. Hundreds more are homeless, listing shelters as permanent addresses.
All are among the 35,000 whose eligibility has been challenged by the Ohio Republican Party. Since mail came back undelivered, the GOP says, those registrations could be fraudulent. Democrats say the GOP is trying to keep poor and minorities, who move more often, from voting.
A federal judge put a temporarily halt to the challenges Wednesday, ruling in favor of Democrats who said the GOP was targeting new voters registered by political groups supporting Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic challenger to President Bush. U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott ruled that six county elections boards should stop hearings scheduled this week in Ohio, a hotly contested state in the presidential election.
Hot digity! They backed off, and a judge said, "Nice try..."
The kicker...the people whose registrations they were challenging included homeless people, people who've been registered and voted for decades, even <gasp> Republicans!
Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere--I checked back 50 diaries and the recommended list and did not see it.