In a U.S. District Court in Cleveland today, Judge Kathleen M. O'Malley ruled on a request for Preliminary Injunction challenging portions of the recently enacted provisions of Ohio law (HB 3) regulating voter registration activities.

Plaintiffs asking for the injunction included Common Cause/Ohio along with Project Vote, and other community, faith groups and individuals.  The plaintiffs claimed that these onerous new laws and regulations have seriously harmed their traditional registration drives by imposing a variety of unreasonable restrictions on individuals and groups involved in voter registration activity.

Common Cause/Ohio is one of the plaintiffs which last Thursday filed an Application for Preliminary Injunction in Federal District Court against Secretary of State Blackwell and the prosecuting attorneys of Summit and Cuyahoga Counties.  The complaint challenges the "onerous" new laws and regulations related to "core political speech and association activities."  It also specifically alleges violation of the National Voting Rights Act.

Plaintiffs, who also include Project Vote, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Ohio Now, People for the American Way Foundation, Communities of Faith Assemblies Church and American Association of People with Disabilities, feel that the new requirements will severely harm the efforts of those civic groups which typically do registration drives, by making it almost impossible for them to hire and train workers, and do the kind of quality control that is necessary in this type of effort.

In a raucous hearing of the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, the committee voted along party lines, 6-4, against Democratic motions to invalidate Secretary of State Blackwell's rules to implement the draconian measures in House Bill 3 which the Democrats and other critics say will suppress voter registration in Ohio.

The rules threaten that anyone receiving "compensation" who fails to turn in a registration form in the manner prescribed could be facing a fifth-degree felony and possible jail time.  As the Democrats pointed out this could have a chilling effect on those groups who have traditionally organized to register new voters.  The Democratic members were outspoken in their criticism of Blackwell, Cleveland Senator C. J. Prentiss saying, "It's just another example in a long laundry list of what Secretary Blackwell will do to trample voting rights." Republican Senator Jeff Jacobson in an angry retort accused the Democrats of a "deliberate attempt to smear the secretary of state."  

Whatever your politics, one cannot deny the landscape will be dramatically changed as far as doing mass voter registration drives.  

Candidate for secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, was holding her own out in the hallway with Jacobson, the most outspoken Republican supporting the new law and its new rules, claiming issues of constitutionality.  There are rumors of law suits in the works.  Stay tuned.  It never gets dull in Columbus, for those who are paying attention.

The recent behavior of Secretary of State Blackwell in making extreme regulations that could inflict criminal penalties on those involved in voter registration could bring to a halt voter registration drives in Ohio.  Blackwell, who is also the Republican candidate for governor, and famous for his voter suppression tactics in the 2004 election, has caught the attention of the New York Times (June 7, 2006, editorial), which states that, "If there was ever a sign of a ruling party in trouble, it is a game plan that calls for trying to win by discouraging voting."

Monday's hearing of the Joint Committee on Agency Rules and Regulations, announcing Blackwell's new rules to comply with the election "reform" law passed late last year, Sub. HB 3, brought out Common Cause/Ohio as well as the Ohio League of Women Voters, ACORN, the Ohio Democratic Party and others to testify. Samuel Gresham of CC/Ohio conveyed the sentiments of many, that Blackwell's actions "are intended to suppress Democratic voter turnout in what is shaping up as a closely contested governor's race..."

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell is no stranger to controversy - he's perhaps best known for his 2004 edict on paper weight for voter registration forms, of course.

Now he's back in the middle of a hailstorm of angry words from Ohio reform groups, who say that Blackwell has implemented rules for a voter registration law that are stricter than the law itself.  For example:

For some angry and frustrated quotes from Ohio reform activists, click "Read More."