In Ohio, a spelling error could cost you your vote - especially if you live in a Dem-leaning area

[progree]

In Ohio, a spelling error could cost you your vote
By John Whitesides and Andy Sullivan, Reuters, November 1, 2016
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ohio-spelling-error-could-cost-vote-101441748.html

Laws passed by the Republican-led Ohio state legislature in 2014 require voters to accurately fill out their personal information on absentee or provisional ballots or they will be rejected - even if the votes are otherwise valid. The laws are being applied in a presidential election for the first time this year.

A Reuters analysis found that where a voter lives can determine whether their provisional or absentee ballot counts in Ohio. The law requiring a perfect match on information such as name, address, birthdate, signature and ID number has been enforced unequally county to county, federal data and court documents show, with local officials sometimes using wide latitude in applying the standards.

The disparity could hurt Democrats in Ohio, a vital battleground in the Nov. 8 election between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. The 14 Ohio counties with the most restrictive enforcement accounted for 53 percent of Ohio's total vote in 2012 and gave Democratic President Barack Obama 60 percent of the votes he won in Ohio. ... More than half of the provisional and absentee votes discarded for minor errors in 2014 came from five large, Democratic-dominated urban counties.

...

Many smaller, heavily Republican rural counties did not reject any ballots for those reasons. In Wyandot County, ballots examined for the lawsuit found officials approved ballots without a valid street address, city or zip code, a wrong or missing birthdate, or a misspelled name.

It's a long article but a very interesting read ... the picayune errors that got one rejected like misspelling a street “Cuthberth” rather than “Cuthbert". Or writing some information in cursive instead of print. Or or or....

kind of a modern-day literacy test by requiring voters to read, write and understand voting forms without making any errors or leaving out information.

[hr]

I early-voted in-person at a voting center (in Minnesota) where they validate one's application before one gets a ballot. I'm not sure what happens to people who vote by mail who have a mistake on their application....

Crossposted in Election Reform http://www.democraticunderground.com/10912283

[rusty quoin]

1. I say give Republicans a break.

We already know they have no scruples, and that they cannot win unless they cheat.

They are just being exactly what they are, like a rattlesnake biting a human. It is natural to them.

The thing to do as Democrats, is vote in overwhelming numbers.

[3catwoman3]

3. What kind of break?

A broken nose sounds pretty good to me, in my fantasies.

[rusty quoin]

5. I like that

[Fast Walker 52]

9. give them a break??? Fuck that

[LisaL]

2. That's why I didn't want to vote by mail.

Easy to make a mistake, then my vote won't count.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. Partly the same reason for me too.

I filled out my legally blind brother's absentee ballot for him (obeying his wishes which was all-Democrat), and I was pleased to see "approved" status a few days later online.

His signature is horrible now since he can't see, but it went through.

[ecstatic]

6. This cannot continue. The GOP's main strategy appears to be voter

disenfranchisement. This is criminal and morally wrong. How have we not corrected this problem yet?!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

7. Stop their gerrymandering and stop electing them into state/local offices.

[progree]

8. It's not just Ohio, it's also Wisconsin and Georgia...

Other states have tried to introduce similar exact-match information requirements. Georgia and Wisconsin also faced recent challenges that led to adjustments in laws requiring voters to provide letter-perfect personal identification information.

That's all this article said about states other than Ohio, so no info about what the "adjustments" are, and how strict they are after these "adjustments".