In Ohio, a federal judge ruled yesterday that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has to use the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database or the Social Security Administration database to verify the registrations of some 660,000 newly registered voters.
"It is hard to imagine a public interest more compelling than safeguarding the legitimacy of the election of the president of the United States," said Judge George C. Smith of U.S. District Court in Columbus in upholding the Ohio Republican Party's request for a court order.The problem with forcing states to use such databases is that they are highly prone to error. Studies in various states have shown that these databases are highly vulnerable to typos, data entry errors, voters checking the wrong box or putting the wrong answer in the wrong place, etc. According to Adam Skaggs of the Brennan Justice Center, studies on the use of these databases reveal that voters are wrongfully flagged by matching criteria up to 20-30% of time, meaning that a substantial number of voters who are properly registered may be disenfranchised.
The Help America Vote Act established strict criteria for newly registered voters, who have to provide a Federally approved form of ID to vote the first time. That means those 600,000 new voters in Ohio would have had to show a government issued photo ID or a government document or utility bill with name and address. None of the people newly registered in Ohio can simply show up and vote without providing ID that conforms to federal standards.
So, in addition to the ID requirements in place to prevent voter fraud, the state of Ohio will be using flawed databases and matching criteria to determine eligibility, which will inevitably prevent a substantial number of legally registered people from voting.
To be completely clear, there is a very small chance that any of the new registrations are fraudulent, and almost none that they will result in double voting. But, given the very flawed methods that will be used to verify registration, there is a very high chance that thousands of people who are eligible to vote will be disenfranchised. The cure is exponentially worse than the disease.
--A. Serwer
