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Ohio violates rule mandating voter updates

Brandon Hoelle

Ohio may have violated a federal mandate by not automatically updating its voter registration database before the 2008 presidential election.

According to the final report of the Ohio Election Summit and Conference, Ohio's statewide Voter Registration Database needs to be improved and updated.

The database is crucial to elections because citizens' ability to vote and have their votes counted depends on whether their current names and addresses are properly added to the database and updated as information changes, according to the Election Summit report.

This means a person's vote only counts if their personal information is updated and accurate.

Lawrence Norden, chair of the Elections Summit and senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the state's inability to maintain this information could be a reason why so many votes were not counted in the election. Norden said there is no direct correlation and more material must be gathered before a definitive decision could be made.

"I think there were about 40,000 provisional ballots that were not counted (in 2008)," Norden said. "There is certainly probably a correlation, and (if the database was updated) certainly that number would have been reduced, but we can't say by how many. We'll have to look into it a little more."

Under Ohio law, citizens are required to inform the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) whenever they change their address and in turn, this information should be sent to the Ohio Secretary of State's office so they know of the changes, said Kevin Kidder, spokesperson for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

But according to the report, the BMV failed to effectively notify the Secretary of State's office of recent changes in address information.

Kidder said the database was being updated in a timely manner.

"As soon as the BMV learned of the problem, BMV officials were very proactive to ensure full compliance with the law," Kidder said. "They have been working to correct it and are still working at it."

Josh Engel, chief legal counsel for the Ohio Department of Public Safety, said oversight by the BMV was not intentional and echoed Kidder's sentiments that the matter would be resolved as quickly as possible.

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"There was no mal-intent here," Engel said. "We work very closely with the Secretary of State's office to make sure that we are complying with the law. We've taken great steps to ensure that these issues - if they have not been resolved - are being resolved right now."

The final report also outlined various ways for voters to ensure that their information is updated.

"The BMV policy was that when someone came in with a change of address form, they would be given a new voter registration card," Engel said. "The report indicated that that was not in compliance with federal requirements; that it should be one piece of paper instead of several."

Engel also said this oversight was the only such occurrence to date, and further problems were not expected to arise.

The Ohio Election Summit and Conference reported they conducted the report to aid Brunner in making necessary changes when the database was found to be out-of-date between summits last year.