U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise in Newark, New Jersey, ruled that Republicans violated decrees he issued in the 1980s that barred political parties from using race or ethnicity as a factor in challenging the integrity of voter registrations.

The ruling came after two U.S. judges in Ohio ruled in separate cases today that only poll workers, not challengers working for Republicans, could determine if the 23,000 people could vote. Debevoise said Ohio Republicans joined the Republican National Committee in unfairly targeting minority voters in trying to stamp out fraud.

``The effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting,'' Debevoise said in issuing his ruling. ``The public interest is always served by encouraging people to vote.''

Debevoise ordered the Republican National Committee to tell its poll challengers to forgo use of the list tomorrow. Attorneys for the national party immediately appealed to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, which oversees Debevoise.

Poll Challengers' Status Up In The Air, Court Must Decide Whether To Overturn Federal Judge's Ban The challenge to the challengers is spilling over into Election Day, reports News 5's John London. There's no guarantee the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati will rule by Tuesday morning, so even if Ohio polls open without challengers, a court ruling could let them in at any time during the day.

Noticeably absent from all the pre-election controversy here in Ohio is the voice of our illustrious (cough) Governor Taft.  Just who is running the Ohio GOP anyway?  Sec. St. Blackwell decided to back off this fight, Attorney General Petro decided to go forward, and lost at trial. 

Blackwell probably figured he had done his bit for the party in throwing out registrations for being on the wrong card stock and pushing through an incredibly restrictive provisional ballot ruling.  Not even he could fight the clearly fictitious petitions Ralph Nader tried to submit, and he's sees the potential for great chaos at every polling station if the GOP partisans get their way and can indiscriminately pull anyone out of line because they don't look right.  But whither Taft?

Against Blackwell's orders, Petro elected to appeal, but wasn't planning on doing anything until after the election.  GOP Attorney Mark Weaver found three empty suits and filed an appeal of two federal judges' rulings (one a Bush appointee, the other a Clinton judge), thus forcing Petro into a rush to prepare briefs which were requested by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Governor Taft was not one of those empty suits.  (See companion story in the Beacon Journal)

It's supposed to be nasty cold and wet in much of Ohio tomorrow.  Add in a few feckless challenges to legitimate voter' right to cast their ballot and lines could stretch and slow to a crawl.  The potential for some white guy in a suit getting popped in the mouth for arbitrarily singling out a black dude who works for a living (and works hard and doesn't have time to take off from work all day to put up with this obvious crap), and the GOP has just what it's been wanting all along.  Cops called out for a "racial incident," people go home instead of waiting in line and the Republithugs get to show how unreasonable and radical our side is.

The racial undertones are transparent. 


They're race baiting.  They know they're wrong but they don't care.  As Jesse said, they are at war with liberalism and minorities and will get to fighting terrorism when it no longer serves their purposes -- which is keeping you afraid.