Boehner on Brunner's Continued Refusal to Comply with Federal Election Law

Statement:

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) issued the following statement regarding Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s continued defiance of federal voting laws that require her to provide local election officials with access to resources to verify voter registrations:

“In the wake of widespread allegations of voter fraud and election abuses in Florida during the 2000 presidential campaign, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was signed into law to restore confidence in our electoral system and to establish the minimum standards to oversee a fair election. Secretary Brunner has shown no interest in conducting a fair election, instead refusing to provide HAVA-required access to a statewide database to verify voter registrations despite reports of voter-registration fraud from groups like ACORN and Vote from Home, a Manhattan-based grassroots organization whose employees and activities have come under scrutiny.

“We’re running out of time for Secretary Brunner to fulfill her oath to ensure Ohioans that their votes will be properly counted. In just two days, absentee ballots and ballots cast during Ohio’s ‘early voting’ week will be removed from their envelopes and co-mingled so that votes cannot be matched to a specific person, in keeping with our right to a secret ballot. But Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters has called for an investigation into the ‘early vote’ ballots after discovering that 166 ‘voters’ and 100 addresses were found not to exist.

“Verifying that persons wanting to vote are eligible to do so and cross-checking their residential status is not suppressing the vote. Instead, it’s suppressing illegal votes that cause irreparable harm to the integrity of our elections. Prosecutor Deters has asked that ballots remain separate until the eligibility of the voters can be verified. Secretary Brunner has so far refused to provide any assurances that she can run a fair election, and removing identifying information from questionable ballots and mixing them with valid absentee and ‘early vote’ ballots increases the likelihood that fraudulent ballots will be counted among valid ones. Secretary Brunner must immediately provide access to statewide resources and order county elections officials to keep separate questionable absentee and ‘early vote’ ballots until the voter registration can be verified. Otherwise, she will devalue the votes of every eligible Ohioan who expects his and her vote to be properly counted.”

NOTE: A Rasmussen poll released last week showed that just 53 percent of Ohio voters believe their votes will be counted properly. Forty-five percent of those polled believe that people who shouldn’t be allowed to vote will do so and 28 percent said that it’s more likely that eligible voters will be denied a chance to cast a ballot. The poll also showed that 80 percent of Ohio voters believe that a driver’s license or other photo ID should be required before voting.