The State Controlling Board approved Secretary of State Jon Husted’s request for more than $332,000 yesterday to pay attorneys’ fees for plaintiffs who sued the state in 2006 over alleged violations of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
The lawsuit, filed by two Cleveland-area residents and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, named then-Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and Barbara E. Riley, then-director of the state’s Department of Job and Family Services, as defendants.
The complaint said that public-assistance offices in many Ohio counties failed to provide voter-registration materials when residents sought benefits, as the federal law requires.
Husted’s office said the state reached a settlement in the case in November 2009, but no agreement on court costs was reached. A federal court ordered the state to pay a total of $664,646.10. The two offices will split the costs.
Source: State OKs paying lawyers in voting-rights case | Columbus Dispatch Politics.