Provisional Ballots, the New “Hanging Chad”?

Get this:

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Ohio’s top elections official to verify the identity of newly registered voters by matching them with other government documents.

The Ohio GOP had sued the Ohio Secretary of State to force her to do the match ups of voter information against Social Security and Motor Vehicle information. This matching process is required by the antipodally named "Help America to Vote Act," HAVA.

HAVA may be a totally crap piece of legislation, but it is not the only law that regulates voter registration.

[Ohio Secretary of State] Brunner has said the state matches registration information against data in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles system and the Social Security database. But she also has said federal law doesn’t say what should be done if a mismatch is discovered, and it is up to counties to check the system for flagged registrations and investigate if warranted.

The judge can force her to match them, but not to purge them. The registrations will, however be flagged.

however, … this "name-matching" process not only violates the guiding federal law on removing voters, the National Voter Registration Act, and violates the guiding federal law on accepting vote registrations, the National Voting Rights Act, but also creates a new basis to challenge presidential results if the vote count is close on November 4.

Yes, dear firepups, that’s what it’s all about, forcing regular registered voters like you and me to vote by provisional ballot because our registration has been flagged. Then the provisional ballot recount can be the 2008 version of the "hanging chad" debacle. More at AlterNet.

Related posts:

1. Vote Fraud in Clay County Should be Considered in Hanging of Census Worker
2. Pete Stark: Hanging Out with Health Care Lobbyists, Won’t Take the Pledge
3. Sen. Feinstein Joins the Fiscal-Scold Seven to Make a Crazy Eight
4. Election 2009: What Happened in Virginia?
5. Online Health Care Townhalls Sunday at FDL: Ohio Democratic Senate Candidates