Brunner provides instruction to counties on statewide voter registration database changes
Lead Summary
By
-
Brunner Provides Instruction To Counties On Statewide Voter Registration Database Changes
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner announced Thursday she is providing instruction to the state’s 88 county boards of elections on changes to the state’s statewide voter registration database. Changes the Secretary has made have helped boards to significantly reduce duplicate registrations within and between counties. Changes made will also assist boards in identifying and resolving individual discrepancies with other information in other databases as is required for new registration information. Brunner is offering the instruction during a session at the annual Winter Conference of the Ohio Association of Election Officials in Columbus. Background The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires each Secretary of State to maintain an online statewide voter registration database that allows new registrants’ information to be checked against existing government databases—those at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and, where a driver’s license number has not been provided, the Social Security Administration’s database. Ohio’s numbers have been too high in comparisons of data with the SSA database, according to the SSA. Yet, in 2006, former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell modified the statewide voter registration database at the request of boards of elections to eliminate notifications of non-matches with BMV and SSA databases. In 2008, litigation was commenced to force the Secretary of State to isolate non-matches that occurred for any reason, to provide a list of voters’ names with non-matched information to boards of elections for them to clear up discrepancies and to accomplish this process in a period of less than a month before the November 2008 general election. The inquiry that led to the lawsuit was initiated by a Franklin County election official,l and the lawsuit was brought by the Ohio Republican Party and a Republican State Representative. While systemic changes had been made to the methods for the flow of data from local voter registration databases to the statewide voter registration database, the system had not been modified to provide targeted “non-matched voter information” on demand regarding groups of voters, by county or statewide, information sought by the Ohio Republican Party and later by the Columbus Dispatch newspaper. The Secretary of State achieved adjudication in the United States Supreme Court that the Ohio Republican Party did not have standing to seek a court order forcing this information to be formatted and provided, and the election proceeded with the ability to resolve discrepancies at polling places through the state’s voter identification laws, enacted in 2006. This law change was the reason former Secretary Blackwell had modified the system to eliminate board notifications on non-matched information. New Agreement with Bureau of Motor Vehicles To enable statewide voter registration database changes that will allow for simpler comparisons by boards of elections, the Secretary of State’s office and the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles negotiated and executed a Memorandum of Understanding on the sharing of information between their databases in compliance with the requirements of HAVA. It is anticipated that the agreement will result in a significantly reduced number of reasons that would cause a non-match in voter information, creating a more refined system with fewer duplicates and easier access to the legally required reasons for resolving information discrepancies in a voter's record. Changes to the new system will also make it easier for county elections officials to identify voter registration records that may need to be updated. “The more we can standardize the information coming from the counties, the better our statewide database information will be and the easier it will be to verify it against other state and national databases,” Secretary Brunner said. “The Help America Vote Act never intended for this database and its contents to be a litmus test for whether or not an Ohioan can vote.” Accompanying the upgrade, Brunner will issue necessary directives to counties to assist them in their use of this information. Role of Counties in Further Improvements At the conference, Secretary Brunner in addition to instruction is asking for the impressions and opinions of county election officials in making these improvements work for boards of elections. The changes to the database were developed with the goal to meet three (3) important criteria:
• Create uniform processes for all 88 counties to properly use information about non-matches.
• Protect voters from purges based solely on a non-match, which is inconsistent with federal law.
• Protect elections boards from litigation by ensuring compliance with federal law, which does not allow systematic purges within 90 days of a federal election.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has announced she is providing instruction to the state’s 88 county boards of elections on changes to the state’s statewide voter registration database. Changes the Secretary has made have helped boards to significantly reduce duplicate registrations within and between counties. Changes made will also assist boards in identifying and resolving individual discrepancies with other information in other databases as is required for new registration information. Brunner is offering the instruction during a session at the annual Winter Conference of the Ohio Association of Election Officials in Columbus.
The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires each Secretary of State to maintain an online statewide voter registration database that allows new registrants’ information to be checked against existing government databases—those at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and, where a driver’s license number has not been provided, the Social Security Administration’s database. Ohio’s numbers have been too high in comparisons of data with the SSA database, according to the SSA. Yet, in 2006, former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell modified the statewide voter registration database at the request of boards of elections to eliminate notifications of non-matches with BMV and SSA databases.
In 2008, litigation was commenced to force the Secretary of State to isolate non-matches that occurred for any reason, to provide a list of voters’ names with non-matched information to boards of elections for them to clear up discrepancies and to accomplish this process in a period of less than a month before the November 2008 general election. The inquiry that led to the lawsuit was initiated by a Franklin County election official,l and the lawsuit was brought by the Ohio Republican Party and a Republican State Representative.
While systemic changes had been made to the methods for the flow of data from local voter registration databases to the statewide voter registration database, the system had not been modified to provide targeted “non-matched voter information” on demand regarding groups of voters, by county or statewide, information sought by the Ohio Republican Party and later by the Columbus Dispatch newspaper. The Secretary of State achieved adjudication in the United States Supreme Court that the Ohio Republican Party did not have standing to seek a court order forcing this information to be formatted and provided, and the election proceeded with the ability to resolve discrepancies at polling places through the state’s voter identification laws, enacted in 2006. This law change was the reason former Secretary Blackwell had modified the system to eliminate board notifications on non-matched information.
The Secretary of State’s office and the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles negotiated and executed a Memorandum of Understanding on the sharing of information between their databases in compliance with the requirements of HAVA.
It is anticipated that the agreement will result in a significantly reduced number of reasons that would cause a non-match in voter information, creating a more refined system with fewer duplicates and easier access to the legally required reasons for resolving information discrepancies in a voter's record.
Changes to the new system will also make it easier for county elections officials to identify voter registration records that may need to be updated. “The more we can standardize the information coming from the counties, the better our statewide database information will be and the easier it will be to verify it against other state and national databases,” Secretary Brunner said. “The Help America Vote Act never intended for this database and its contents to be a litmus test for whether or not an Ohioan can vote.”
Accompanying the upgrade, Brunner will issue necessary directives to counties to assist them in their use of this information. Role of Counties in Further Improvements At the conference, Secretary Brunner in addition to instruction is asking for the impressions and opinions of county election officials in making these improvements work for boards of elections. The changes to the database were developed with the goal to meet three (3) important criteria:
• Create uniform processes for all 88 counties to properly use information about non-matches.
• Protect voters from purges based solely on a non-match, which is inconsistent with federal law.
• Protect elections boards from litigation by ensuring compliance with federal law, which does not allow systematic purges within 90 days of a federal election.[[In-content Ad]]
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner announced Thursday she is providing instruction to the state’s 88 county boards of elections on changes to the state’s statewide voter registration database. Changes the Secretary has made have helped boards to significantly reduce duplicate registrations within and between counties. Changes made will also assist boards in identifying and resolving individual discrepancies with other information in other databases as is required for new registration information. Brunner is offering the instruction during a session at the annual Winter Conference of the Ohio Association of Election Officials in Columbus. Background The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires each Secretary of State to maintain an online statewide voter registration database that allows new registrants’ information to be checked against existing government databases—those at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and, where a driver’s license number has not been provided, the Social Security Administration’s database. Ohio’s numbers have been too high in comparisons of data with the SSA database, according to the SSA. Yet, in 2006, former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell modified the statewide voter registration database at the request of boards of elections to eliminate notifications of non-matches with BMV and SSA databases. In 2008, litigation was commenced to force the Secretary of State to isolate non-matches that occurred for any reason, to provide a list of voters’ names with non-matched information to boards of elections for them to clear up discrepancies and to accomplish this process in a period of less than a month before the November 2008 general election. The inquiry that led to the lawsuit was initiated by a Franklin County election official,l and the lawsuit was brought by the Ohio Republican Party and a Republican State Representative. While systemic changes had been made to the methods for the flow of data from local voter registration databases to the statewide voter registration database, the system had not been modified to provide targeted “non-matched voter information” on demand regarding groups of voters, by county or statewide, information sought by the Ohio Republican Party and later by the Columbus Dispatch newspaper. The Secretary of State achieved adjudication in the United States Supreme Court that the Ohio Republican Party did not have standing to seek a court order forcing this information to be formatted and provided, and the election proceeded with the ability to resolve discrepancies at polling places through the state’s voter identification laws, enacted in 2006. This law change was the reason former Secretary Blackwell had modified the system to eliminate board notifications on non-matched information. New Agreement with Bureau of Motor Vehicles To enable statewide voter registration database changes that will allow for simpler comparisons by boards of elections, the Secretary of State’s office and the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles negotiated and executed a Memorandum of Understanding on the sharing of information between their databases in compliance with the requirements of HAVA. It is anticipated that the agreement will result in a significantly reduced number of reasons that would cause a non-match in voter information, creating a more refined system with fewer duplicates and easier access to the legally required reasons for resolving information discrepancies in a voter's record. Changes to the new system will also make it easier for county elections officials to identify voter registration records that may need to be updated. “The more we can standardize the information coming from the counties, the better our statewide database information will be and the easier it will be to verify it against other state and national databases,” Secretary Brunner said. “The Help America Vote Act never intended for this database and its contents to be a litmus test for whether or not an Ohioan can vote.” Accompanying the upgrade, Brunner will issue necessary directives to counties to assist them in their use of this information. Role of Counties in Further Improvements At the conference, Secretary Brunner in addition to instruction is asking for the impressions and opinions of county election officials in making these improvements work for boards of elections. The changes to the database were developed with the goal to meet three (3) important criteria:
• Create uniform processes for all 88 counties to properly use information about non-matches.
• Protect voters from purges based solely on a non-match, which is inconsistent with federal law.
• Protect elections boards from litigation by ensuring compliance with federal law, which does not allow systematic purges within 90 days of a federal election.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has announced she is providing instruction to the state’s 88 county boards of elections on changes to the state’s statewide voter registration database. Changes the Secretary has made have helped boards to significantly reduce duplicate registrations within and between counties. Changes made will also assist boards in identifying and resolving individual discrepancies with other information in other databases as is required for new registration information. Brunner is offering the instruction during a session at the annual Winter Conference of the Ohio Association of Election Officials in Columbus.
The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires each Secretary of State to maintain an online statewide voter registration database that allows new registrants’ information to be checked against existing government databases—those at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and, where a driver’s license number has not been provided, the Social Security Administration’s database. Ohio’s numbers have been too high in comparisons of data with the SSA database, according to the SSA. Yet, in 2006, former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell modified the statewide voter registration database at the request of boards of elections to eliminate notifications of non-matches with BMV and SSA databases.
In 2008, litigation was commenced to force the Secretary of State to isolate non-matches that occurred for any reason, to provide a list of voters’ names with non-matched information to boards of elections for them to clear up discrepancies and to accomplish this process in a period of less than a month before the November 2008 general election. The inquiry that led to the lawsuit was initiated by a Franklin County election official,l and the lawsuit was brought by the Ohio Republican Party and a Republican State Representative.
While systemic changes had been made to the methods for the flow of data from local voter registration databases to the statewide voter registration database, the system had not been modified to provide targeted “non-matched voter information” on demand regarding groups of voters, by county or statewide, information sought by the Ohio Republican Party and later by the Columbus Dispatch newspaper. The Secretary of State achieved adjudication in the United States Supreme Court that the Ohio Republican Party did not have standing to seek a court order forcing this information to be formatted and provided, and the election proceeded with the ability to resolve discrepancies at polling places through the state’s voter identification laws, enacted in 2006. This law change was the reason former Secretary Blackwell had modified the system to eliminate board notifications on non-matched information.
The Secretary of State’s office and the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles negotiated and executed a Memorandum of Understanding on the sharing of information between their databases in compliance with the requirements of HAVA.
It is anticipated that the agreement will result in a significantly reduced number of reasons that would cause a non-match in voter information, creating a more refined system with fewer duplicates and easier access to the legally required reasons for resolving information discrepancies in a voter's record.
Changes to the new system will also make it easier for county elections officials to identify voter registration records that may need to be updated. “The more we can standardize the information coming from the counties, the better our statewide database information will be and the easier it will be to verify it against other state and national databases,” Secretary Brunner said. “The Help America Vote Act never intended for this database and its contents to be a litmus test for whether or not an Ohioan can vote.”
Accompanying the upgrade, Brunner will issue necessary directives to counties to assist them in their use of this information. Role of Counties in Further Improvements At the conference, Secretary Brunner in addition to instruction is asking for the impressions and opinions of county election officials in making these improvements work for boards of elections. The changes to the database were developed with the goal to meet three (3) important criteria:
• Create uniform processes for all 88 counties to properly use information about non-matches.
• Protect voters from purges based solely on a non-match, which is inconsistent with federal law.
• Protect elections boards from litigation by ensuring compliance with federal law, which does not allow systematic purges within 90 days of a federal election.[[In-content Ad]]