About 1,000 voter registrations in Lorain County were challenged — here's how it went

SHEFFIELD TOWNSHIP — The Lorain County Board of Elections on Thursday fully rejected challenges related to voting registrations in six out of seven categories. The challenges brought by Kathryn Kennedy of Lorain. Kennedy of Lorain challenged approximately 1,000 registrations on Oct. 4. One of the categories, related to four provably dead voters — none of whom had "voted while dead" — was upheld, with a challenge to five other registrations in that same batch rejected. "Every time we receive these, we take them very seriously," board Director Paul Adams told the four-member Board of Elections at the meeting. To review the challenges, six election workers were tasked with helping Adams, a Democrat, and Jim Kramer, a Republican and the board's deputy director, dig through board records. One of the challenges, No. 6, involved registered voters James Barnes and Jessica Barnes. Their registered address turned out to be a UPS Store in Avon Lake, Adams said. Kennedy's challenge was to correct the registration. The Barneses did not attend the meeting nor respond to the board's inquiries, Adams said. Still, the board voted unanimously to deny that challenge and five others completely. Board President Marilyn Jacobcik, a Republican, said the board doesn't have the power to remove the two from voter rolls. "They are entitled to vote. What they have to do is provide us with the correct address so we can assign them to their current precinct," she said. Board Member Anthony Giardini, a Democrat, said that will be done if they vote in person, in which case they will have to cast provisional ballots for review. Challenge No. 1 Kennedy challenged 97 voters who changed their addresses at least once. However, a voter simply moving from place to place is not a good enough reason to challenge their voting eligibility, the board said. All the changes appeared proper and were double-checked by staff and Kennedy's challenge unanimously rejected. Jacobcik told Kennedy the burden of proof was on her, and Giardini said there's "nothing wrong" with a voter changing their address multiple times. Challenge No. 2 Kennedy's challenge to 103 voters she claimed were too young to vote also was rejected. Eighty-one voters had registration dates that fell on holidays that took place prior to the start of online voter registration in 2017. Twenty-two she claimed were too young to vote when they registered. Adams said he and his staff looked at all of those, and all were legitimate. Some of the original registrations in question dated back to the 1970s and 1980s, he said. Challenge No. 3 Some of the 14 names that Kennedy challenged in her third filing appeared as if the person who registered had the same first and last names — "Joseph Joseph," for example. "So we did look up each one of those. Those are all actually their names," provably and legally, Adams said. One voter Kennedy challenged is a legitimate one whose last name is "just the letter 'Y,'" Adams said. A Native American voter named just "Sundance" and a woman who just goes by "Lily" both also were legal, he said. Challenge No. 4 Fourteen records with allegedly incorrect birthdates were properly entered. The records included 13 with listed birth dates of "1/1/1800" (11) or "1/1/1900" (two). The challenge was rejected, as Adams said the registrations all were legitimate. The law hasn't always required voters in Ohio to provide a date of birth for registration purposes, he said. But when computers came into use, a full birth date had to be entered. "So the state uniformly, in all 88 counties, used the 1/1/1800 or 1/1/1900 so we all know that's someone who registered before they needed to provide their date of birth," Jacobcik said. "There's very, very few of them left in our system. And you found them," Adams told Kennedy. Challenge No. 5 Kennedy's fifth challenge involved nine voters who appeared to be dead. It was denied in part and upheld in part. Two voters "appeared to have voted after being dead," but simply had common names, Adams said. The board is only permitted to remove dead voters from the rolls if their deaths are confirmed by the county health department or a valid death certificate: Published obituaries aren't good enough evidence, he said. Board staff found four voters among those in Kennedy's challenge whose names matched death records from the Lorain County Board of Health. Their names were removed and that portion of the challenge was upheld. None had voted, Adams said. Challenge No. 7 Adams said Kennedy's challenge to 743 "duplicate" registrations was rejected. In some cases, they were people with similar names and dates of birth, or twins with the same birth date, registration date and address. Lorain County will catch voters who try to vote twice in two different counties, Giardini said. "We have referred people to the county prosecutor," he said, whether they voted twice "inadvertently or on purpose ... and we let the county prosecutor sort out whether it was intentional. If it was, it's a crime." Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Check out out our guide to the November election.