Ohio Voter Problems An Omen?
WOODRUFF: As we've been reporting, backers of both George Bush and John Kerry have worked hard to register many new voters in the battleground states, particularly Ohio. CNN's Joe Johns reports that the wave of new voters is already posing new problems for Ohio election officials.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: With tens of thousands of newly registered voters challenged by Ohio Republicans before the election, the system is already showing signs of confusion. In some smaller counties, hearings to verify the residency of voters began Thursday. But in six other counties, including two of the largest, which encompass Cleveland and Columbus, challenged voters showed up for hearings only to find they'd been halted the day before by a federal judge.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your right to vote has been challenged by a qualified elector.</s>JOHNS: The Ohio Republican Party says it filed its challenges after sending letters to newly registered voters returned as undeliverable.</s>MARK WEAVER, OHIO GOP ELECTION ATTORNEY: Here in Ohio we regularly send out mailers to new registrants, saying "Welcome to being a voter and please vote for our candidates." This time when we sent out those new mailers, we had thousands, tray-loads, coming back saying no such person lives here.</s>JOHNS: But Democrats argue undeliverable mail doesn't necessarily mean a person's registration should be thrown out, that there may be innocent reasons.</s>MYRON MARLIN, DEMOCRATIC PARTY SPOKESMAN: It suggests that somebody who might be serving in the military, many of these cases, have addresses here in Ohio that are just simply addresses of record but not places where they receive mail. It suggests that people might not have a mailbox but instead a post office box. It suggests that people may have been living in a dorm room and didn't have their right dorm room number down. So lots of students have been attacked. It suggests that maybe somebody moved from one part of the county to the next.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then also on the letter...</s>JOHNS: Case in point, Christopher Smith of Bexley. He changed addresses here in September, and somebody misspelled his new street name in the elections computer. His registration was challenged.</s>CHRISTOPHER SMITH, OHIO RESIDENT: I feel it's my right to vote. I want to vote. They're not going to rob me of it just because I moved.</s>JOHNS: This leaves local election officials scrambling and hoping to be prepared for Tuesday.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming out of the year 2000, I mean, there's a lot of confusion anyway. And I think this just goes to further add to that confusion.</s>JOHNS: And Judy, the Ohio attorney general has gotten into the act. He is filing an appeal, asking for a stay of the judge's most recent decision. There is also another lawsuit now in the works. That lawsuit alleges that the people who are being hired to camp out at the polls and challenge people on Election Day will intimidate African-American voters. That lawsuit before the judge in Cincinnati this afternoon. Back to you.</s>WOODRUFF: No one could have predicted it would be this contentious right down to the wire. Joe Johns, thank you very much. Well, we have reaction from both sides on Ohio registration challenges. We're going to hear from Ohio's secretary of state, Republican Ken Blackwell, shortly. But first, we get Democratic reaction from Ralph Neas. He is the president of the group People for the American Way. I should say the liberal group People for the American Way. That's how it's been identified. What is your concern, Ralph Neas, with this decision by Ken Blackwell, who's the secretary of state in Ohio, to increase the number of partisan challengers at Ohio polling places?</s>RALPH NEAS, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: Judy, People for the American Way foundation is nonpartisan. We're not Democrat or Republican. Every day I open the newspapers or look at CNN, and I'm outraged by what's happening in Florida or in Ohio. It looks like confusion and chaos, and maybe even corruption is reigning. Why in a year where Republicans and Democrats and nonpartisans have done such a magnificent job of registering people do you want to suppress the vote? Voting is the heart and soul of our democracy. And Ken Blackwell -- and I'm sorry he can't be here to debate me -- seems to be doing everything over the last two or three months to suppress the vote, especially in the minority areas.</s>WOODRUFF: Well, we are going to be talking to him in just a moment. I'm going to be posing to him some of the questions that you're raising. But essentially, as I understand it, their argument is this is necessary to prevent voter fraud. They're concerned about all these newly-registered people, wanting to make sure that every one of them is legally entitled to vote in the state of Ohio.</s>NEAS: Of course. We want every single registrant to be legal. But there's very little evidence of voter fraud in this country this year or over the last 20 or 30 years. And massive evidence of intimidation and suppression. People for the American Way foundation, the NAACP put out a report just seven or eight weeks ago that shows many, many dozens of incidents, unfortunately by Republicans over the last five, 10 or 15 years. In fact, the Republicans have had to sign four consent decrees saying they won't challenge voters on the basis of race anymore. And unfortunately, I think this is what Ken Blackwell and Jeb Bush are doing. They're going to be challenging voters primarily on the basis of race for partisan reasons. They should be encouraging first-time voters, all Republican and Democratic voters, to get in the polling booth and have a vote that counts.</s>WOODRUFF: How do you know they're going to be challenging people primarily on the basis of race?</s>NEAS: Unfortunately, that has been the history that this document corroborates very extensively. And when you look at the counties that Ken Blackwell and the Republicans in Ohio, or Jeb Bush in Florida, with Glenda Hood, are targeting, unfortunately they're targeting primarily minority counties. You can't do that under the law. Voter suppression, when you take race into account in a major way or a minor way, is inconsistent with the law. It's immoral. It's illegal. It's unconscionable.</s>WOODRUFF: But if people are at the polls and they want to vote, and they're there legally, then how can they be dissuaded from voting or prevented from voting if they have a right to be there?</s>NEAS: Well, People for the American Way foundation and the Election Protection Coalition, we're going to have four monitors at all of these polls. We're going to have lawyers. We're going to have a 1-866-OUR-VOTE that every single voter who has a problem can call and get a lawyer immediately if this person is challenged. We're going to have these warning signs to show these challengers, if you are challenging improperly, you can be brought in to court and charged with a crime. You can only challenge for certain reasons. But there are two reasons why Ken Blackwell is challenging, to try to get people not to vote, to suppress the vote, but it also delays everybody else in line. So people are waiting two or three or four or five or six hours or all day. We're going to ask everybody to take a day off and counter these voter suppression tactics with what happened in the '60s. We're going to stand up to suppression and stand up to intimidation.</s>WOODRUFF: We're going to pose some of these questions in just a moment to Ken Blackwell, but right now I want to say thank you to Ralph Neas, who is the head of People for the American Way. Thanks very much. We appreciate you coming by.</s>NEAS: Well, thanks, Judy, for having me.</s>WOODRUFF: Thank you. A repeat of the 2000 presidential fiasco? Ahead on INSIDE POLITICS, why some are afraid of another voting nightmare. And this time why the attention might focus, as we just said, not on Florida -- or we should say in addition to Florida, on Ohio.