Last night, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 2-1, vacated the district court’s injunction requiring Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to make efforts to verify voter registration information. The Columbus Dispatch reports:
The three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Brunner is not required to provide county elections boards with the names of voters whose personal information does not match state motor-vehicle or federal Social Security records, as ordered Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith of Columbus.
Brunner had sought an emergency order delaying Smith’s order, and the appeals court agreed with Brunner that federal law does not require her to provide the names and that the Nov. 4 election is too close for major policy changes.
The panel noted that the process of matching voter information with state and federal records has been in place since 2007, and that the details about mismatches are available to counties on individual voter records, even if not in one list. . . .
Judge Richard Allen Griffin dissented, saying the three-judge panel should not have acted so quickly and that Brunner’s “lack of concern for the integrity of the elections process is astounding and deeply disturbing.”
More here.