Bush asks Justice Dept to look into Ohio voter-registration dispute

He does so at the behest of House GOP leader John Boehner. The partisan fight centers on discrepancies in state data.

Mary Pat Flaherty - October 25, 2008

Reporting from Washington -- The White House has asked the Department of Justice to look into whether 200,000 new Ohio voters must reconfirm their registration information before Nov. 4, taking up an issue that Republicans and Democrats in the battleground state have been fighting over in court for weeks.

The voter names are in dispute because their registration information conflicts with other official data.

[...] Also Friday, six former Justice Department lawyers urged Mukasey to ensure that voter registration investigations don't disenfranchise eligible minorities, the Associated Press reported.

The six attorneys, who formerly worked in the department's Civil Rights Division, wrote the attorney general that Justice generally discourages voter-related investigations until after elections to ensure that inquiries don't interfere with legitimate voters.

The Justice Department had not received the letter as of Friday night.

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