Analysis

By Joe Scherpenberg

Meet Aftab Pureval: the 36-year-old Democratic challenger to Steve Chabot in OH-01. Pureval’s star shot up after winning an election for Hamilton County Clerk of Courts in 2016. As one of the more closely watched congressional races in the country, Pureval’s campaign has been derailed in the last two months by allegations of election law violations. 

For some background, OH-01 was one of the more competitive congressional districts in the country before the 2010 census, despite Chabot being elected for 22 out of the last 24 years. A Republican-led state legislature redrew district lines adding in solid-red Warren County to OH-01, which offset the predominately-blue city of Cincinnati. Since redistricting, Chabot has won the seat comfortably by at least 19 percentage points, although lack of interest in the race from national Democrats certainly has resulted in candidates with a lower ceiling. Pureval’s entrance was supposed to change this.

Pureval first won county-wide office by defeating incumbent Tracey Winkler. The Winkler name is synonymous with the Republican power brokers in Hamilton County, who have had a tight hold on county offices for a generation. Armed with his clever campaign ads, Pureval is seen as the leader of the next generation of Democrats in Ohio. Despite only holding office since 2016 and not living in the district at the time, Pureval entered the race for OH-01 hoping to capitalize on a “Blue-wave.”

It seemed like Pureval was primed for another upset when in July, Sabato’s crystal ball elevated the race to “toss-up.”Then what seemed like the crest of Pureval’s personal wave hit from repeated allegations of campaign finance violations in September. Essentially, Pureval was accused of using funds from his “Clerk Of Courts” campaign to pay for polling on his congressional bid. Pureval denied any wrongdoing but his campaign couldn’t shake the allegations. A lawsuit was filed against Pureval’s campaign. Then, more recently, allegations were thrown at Pureval’s campaign, this time involving a campaign volunteer posing as a volunteer for Chabot’s campaign.            

The litigation from these allegations didn’t seem to go anywhere. The allegations of campaign finance were dismissed by the Ohio Elections Commission, with the exception of a $100 fine for paying a photographer from the wrong Venmo account, and no charges were formally filed by the Chabot camp for the supposed “double agent.” 

While the legal consequences appear not to have come to fruition, the political ones certainly can be felt by Pureval. Since the high water mark of Sabato moving the race to a toss-up, the allegations dogging the campaign has seen his polling fall back, resulting in the race moved to “lean Republican” and the resignation of Pureval’s campaign manager. 

The lesson here is the losing the control of the message that can result from any allegation of impropriety, even when they don’t result in formal repercussions.

By Joe Scherpenberg

U.S. District Court Judge Eleanor Ross granted an injunction mandating that Georgia allow some 3,000 individuals vote.The voters were “purged” from eligibility because their signatures did not live up to the controversial “exact match” standard, which flags voter registrations for small discrepancies as potentially noncitizens. Interestingly, the top election official in Georgia, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, is running for governor. 

This race has been especially contentious, even generating a call from former President Jimmy Carter for Kemp to step down as Secretary of State.

Of heightened concern is how race is playing into the supposed “purging.” The NAACP, one of the plaintiffs in the Federal Suit, alleges that this is occurring disproportionately to minority voters. Judge Ross cited this very reason in her opinion granting the injunction. The “exact match” problem may have affected upwards of 55,000 voters. 

 The exact match law is in place for the first time in 2018. This is especially pertinent because prior to the Supreme Court’s decision In Shelby County v. Holder, a change such as this would have been subject to pre-clearance from the United States Justice Department. Since this decision, where Chief Justice Roberts determined that incidents such as this were things of the past and that our country has changed, states that were formerly covered by the Voting Rights Act have been free to implement changes to voting laws without approval from the Justice Department.

These changes have included voter identification laws, redistricting maps, and of course, Georgia’s “exact match” law. All of which, it has been alleged, disproportionately suppress minority votes

By Silas Montgomery

As much as Kentucky loves its Bourbon, alcohol sales were prohibited on election day until 2016! Before KRS §244.290 took effect on July 15, 2016 Kentucky had a statewide ban on alcohol sales while polls were open. Until recently, the only other states still clinging to similarly antiquated prohibition-esque laws were Indiana and South Carolina.

This dated policy banning alcohol sales stemmed largely from politicians using alcoholic incentives to buy votes on election day years ago when it was common for saloons to double as polling stations. This morally ambiguous policy was obviously problematic but the main take away was that opportunistic politicians would offer booze in exchange for ballots on election day at the poll/bar. “[O]ne way to do that was to keep the voters liquored up and basically seduce them or bribe them with drinks, free drinks, and it could actually skew the results of the election.” Jim Holmberg of the Filson Historical Society of Louisville told WFPL.

Apparently, buying votes with alcohol is a bonified American tradition dating all the way back to our very first president George Washington. As Daniel Okrent wrote in his book “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition:

"When twenty-four-year-old George Washington first ran for a seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses, he attributed his defeat to his failure to provide  enough alcohol for the voters. When he tried again two years later, Washington floated into office partly on the 144 gallons of rum, punch, hard cider and beer his election agent handed out—roughly half a gallon for every vote he received."

KRS 244.290 allows “[a] licensee authorized to sell distilled spirits or wine at retail shall be permitted to sell and deliver distill spirits and wine during the hours the polls are open on any primary, or regular, local option, or special election day unless it is located where the legislative body…prohibits the sale of distilled spirits and wine.” Put plainly, KRS § 244.290 allows for authorized alcohol distributors to sell alcohol on election day unless the county is dry and wouldn’t be allowed to do so otherwise.

Indiana repealed its ban on election day alcohol sales back in 2012, Kentucky’s bill was passed back in 2013 but as mentioned above took effect in 2016, and South Carolina followed suit in 2014 repealing the last remaining ban on election day alcohol sales nationwide. 

For better or for worse, bottoms up!

By Scott Sullivan

After the Florida recount debacle of 2000, there was a big push to modernize voting processes with electronic voting machines.

Electronic voting offered States a myriad of advantages over old paper ballots such as no “hanging chads”, dimpled ballots, or double votes; and near instantaneous tabulation at the close of voting. To support states transition to more modern voting infrastructure, Congress in 2002 passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). HAVA provided funding to states to allow them to meet minimum standards in election administration across such areas as: updated voting equipment, provisional voting, registration, and identification.

States allocated funds—both internal and those provided by HAVA—to modernize voting methods. Today, most jurisdictions utilize an electronic machine, optical scan ballot or both. An optical scan ballot has the voter complete a ballot by “coloring in” an oval corresponding to the candidate of your choice (similar to how you take many standardized tests), which is then counted by a machine and ballots retained. Electronic machines, on the other hand, have the voter directly use the machine to enter their vote, and its tabulated immediately.

In the move to electronic machines, it appears that some jurisdictions lost sight of the key feature of a voting system …  public confidence in the results. Many jurisdictions, including my precinct in Kentucky, use electronic machines, specifically Direct Recording Electronic Voting Machines (DRE),  without the ability to audit or recount the results. With all their shortcomings, one of the key features of paper ballots was the ability to recount the results without reference to the original report. Many of the machines in use across the nations spit out a ballot count at closing lacking an independent way to verify the accuracy of that count. Any recount is limited to reexamining the arithmetic that went into adding the various machine generated reports. There exists a fix for this problem, equip DREs with voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT), effectively a “receipt” that the voter verifies then drops into a ballot box. The VVPATs are then used for any post-election counts, whether they be a standard procedure, random audit or directed recount by a state’s election authority. To date, 31 states have statutes requiring some form of permanent voter record, whether it be VVPAT or paper ballot.

What does this mean for elections moving forward? When we hear talks of recounts after tonight’s elections, the type of machine used may play an important role in how that recount proceeds.