(Columbus) - Ohio Republican Party Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine issued the following statement regarding Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern's claim of voter suppression:
"If Democrats want to complain about voter suppression, they should look no further than their own secretary of state. A unanimous court ruling denounced Jennifer Brunner's effort to deny absentee ballots to thousands of Republican voters as a clear violation of state law. Even the ACLU accused Secretary Brunner of 'political maneuvering' and 'hampering the rights of voters.'
Chris Redfern's phony outrage is nothing short of hypocritical. The Democrats said nothing when Jennifer Brunner refused to follow a legislative order to send absentee ballot request forms to all qualified voters. They said nothing when Jennifer Brunner tried to suppress Republican absentee votes. They said nothing about Jennifer Brunner's effort to keep openness and transparency out of the early voting process. And they said nothing about Jennifer Brunner's attempt to keep election administrators from verifying the identity of newly registered voters, even as their own activist groups publicly admitted to engaging in fraudulent registration activity.
It's clear that the Democrat strategy is to cover up the shady tactics of their front groups and then cry suppression when anyone tries to prevent fraud from corrupting the system. It's a scam being run from the Obama campaign to the Secretary of State to the Ohio Democratic Party, and voters are catching on."
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FOR THE RECORD:
Brunner's Suppression Tactics
"This is a clear case of bureaucracy hampering the rights of voters."
- ACLU of Ohio Staff Counsel Carrie Davis (Release)
"This type of political maneuvering presents an undue burden on voters and violates their constitutional rights."
- Meredith Bell-Platts, staff counsel with the ACLU Voting Rights Project (Release)
"No vital public purpose or public interest is served by rejecting electors' applications for absentee ballots because of an unmarked check box next to a qualified-elector statement."
- Unanimous Ohio Supreme Court Opinion (2008-Ohio-5097)
"The 'strict, complex application rules' were entirely made up by Brunner - to block Republican voters only. No wonder the rest of the country is beginning to think Brunner is Ohio's Katherine Harris - the Florida secretary of state vilified by Democrats in 2000. But that's not fair. Harris wasn't half as partisan as Brunner."
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