Ohio Secretary of State to decide local election?

Ohio law gives the Secretary of State enormous power to decide local election issues. Outgoing Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is one of the most partisan Secretaries of State in the nation. She has been willing to advance an agenda through her office whether it was forcing Cuyahoga County to use Spanish ballots countywide instead of the few areas they were actually needed, or, to interfere with removing ineligible voters from the rolls on the eve of the 2008 Presidential election. On the eve of her departure from office, Brunner will likely decide an election outcome.

In Cincinnati, a vacant juvenile court judge seat is up. At issue are 849 rejected provisional ballots. The Democrat Tracie Hunter trails by 23 votes. Ohio law requires voters to cast provisional ballots in their correct precinct. 284 of the 849 rejected provisional ballots were cast at the wrong precinct table. Hunter is arguing poll workers made a mistake by not sending those voters to the correct precinct table location. The federal court ordered Hamilton County to reexamine whether the provisional ballots should be counted.

This ruling is subject to appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Republicans on the Hamilton County board want to appeal. Democrats don’t. It is a tie.

Guess who gets to cast the deciding vote on whether to appeal the potentially incorrect decision? Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. Rather than defend Ohio law which requires provisional ballots to be cast at the correct precinct, based on her past partisan plays, expect Brunner to vote not to appeal the federal court opinion. Cincinnati.com has more .