On Feb. 11, a federal judge in Ohio issued a permanent injunction blocking enforcement of a state law restricting voter registration activities. The Ohio law in question in Project Vote v. Blackwell limited the ability of third parties such as nonprofits to register citizens to vote in the state. Voting rights advocates hailed the decision as a victory for minority, disabled, and low-income voters who often rely on nonprofits to help with registration.

The voter registration rules at issue were passed by the Ohio legislature in June 2006 as part of House Bill 3. In July 2006, six nonprofit organizations filed suit against Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, challenging portions of the new law. In her decision last week, District Court Judge Kathleen M. O'Malley wrote that the challenged provisions not only violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but also the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.

The most burdensome provision of the now-vacated regulations required voter registration workers to personally deliver new registrations to the board of elections or Secretary of State. Previously, registration workers were allowed to hand over completed registration forms to a supervisor, who would then approve and collectively submit all new registrations. Failure to comply with the new requirement was considered a felony.

Passage of the new rules in 2006 immediately impacted Ohio nonprofits' voter engagement activities. In their original July 2006 complaint, the plaintiffs argued, "These onerous and vague new laws and regulations chill core political speech and association and have forced all of the plaintiffs to seriously curtail or halt their voter registration and related core political speech and association activities."

In its motion to dismiss, the state argued that Ohio offered citizens numerous alternatives to third-party registration and that the regulations were a means of protecting citizens from fraud. In their response, the plaintiffs replied that the new regulations actually made registration fraud more, not less, likely because the regulations forbid a supervisor from reviewing registrations before submission. The plaintiffs wrote, "Requiring individual workers and volunteers to personally deliver forms to the state severely constrains Plaintiffs' voter registration drives by limiting their ability to implement quality control measures and by imposing inefficient, unnecessary, and taxing burdens on their employees and volunteers."

Wendy Weiser, the Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, applauded O'Malley's decision last week, saying, "We are very pleased the Court recognized how laws restricting voter registration drives unlawfully stand in the way of core democratic activity. The original law hindered efforts by non-partisan groups to help low-income, minority and disabled citizens to register to vote."

In recent years, several states have passed laws restricting third-party voter registration. New Mexico imposed a strict deadline on registration, requiring new applications be turned in no later than 48 hours after completion. In Florida, nonprofits are challenging a new law which imposes fines on charities for each voter registration not submitted within ten days of its completion. Similar restrictions for third-party registration were declared unconstitutional by a federal court in Florida last year in League of Women Voters v. Cobb. Other states that have passed restrictions on voter registration include California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, and Washington.

The nonprofit plaintiffs in the case included Project Vote, American Association of People with Disabilities, ACORN, People for the American Way Foundation, Common Cause, and Community of Faith Assemblies Church.