# Jennifer Brunner

Jennifer Lee Brunner (born February 5, 1957) is an American attorney, politician, and judge. She is currently an associate justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, a position to which she was elected after serving as a judge on the Ohio Tenth District Court of Appeals. A member of the Democratic Party, Brunner also served one term as Ohio Secretary of State from 2007 to 2011 and unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010. Prior to being elected Secretary of State, Brunner worked in the Ohio Secretary of State's Office and served as a County Judge in Franklin County, Ohio.
In 2022, she was defeated by fellow associate justice Sharon Kennedy in an election to become Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.
Following Supreme Court elections being made partisan in 2021, as of 2025 Brunner is the only statewide elected Democrat in Ohio.

## Career

Brunner was born in Springfield, Ohio and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She earned a B.A. in sociology-gerontology, cum laude, from Miami University in 1978 and a J.D. from Capital University Law School with honors in 1982. Subsequently, Brunner worked in the Ohio Secretary of State's Office as a deputy director and legislative counsel to the Ohio General Assembly during the administration of Sherrod Brown from 1983 to 1987, working with state legislators on finance-reporting laws for campaign committees and laws for election procedures.

### Private practice

From 1988 to 2000, Brunner maintained a statewide law practice focusing on election law and campaign finance. During that time she also briefly served as a member of the Franklin County Board of Elections.
Brunner litigated various ballot propositions in her private practice, including propositions involving alcohol sales, tax levies, rezoning, and gambling. Brunner also represented several Ohio politicians in disputes involving redistricting and false statements in campaign literature.

### Early elective career

In 1995, Brunner again applied for a vacant seat on the Columbus City Council, but was not selected. In 2000, Brunner was elected to an unexpired term on the Franklin County Common Pleas Court. She was reelected in 2002. In 2004, Brunner, along with other Court of Common Pleas judges, created a separate drug court to reduce addiction-related recidivism.
Brunner resigned from the Court on September 1, 2005 to run for Ohio Secretary of State. She ran unopposed in the May 2, 2006 Democratic Primary. Her campaign received support from the Secretary of State Project, a progressive political action committee. On November 7, 2006, she defeated Republican Greg Hartmann by a 55%–40% margin, taking office on January 8, 2007.

### Secretary of State

In September 2007, Brunner announced plans to identify and correct security and reliability problems with voting machines in advance of March 4, 2008 Ohio Democratic and Republican primaries. In particular, she expressed concern about local election officials taking voting machines home with them in the days before an election, and she ordered bipartisan transport teams for voting machines and proscribed storage conditions. She also advocated the replacement of all Ohio voting machines with paper ballots counted by optical scanning machines, although the Ohio General Assembly did not provide funding to switch to paper ballots for the November 2008 general election.
During the 2008 presidential primaries, Ohio experienced record voter turnout, but the primary was marred by paper ballot shortages, bomb threats, ice storms and power failures. In addition, flooding forced the relocation of some polling places in southeastern Ohio. 21 precincts in the Cleveland metropolitan area were held open for an extra 90 minutes due to paper ballot shortages.
Between January 1, 2008 and mid-October 2008, over 666,000 Ohioans registered to vote either for the first time or with updated voter information, and over 200,000 of them provided driver's licenses or Social Security numbers that do not match government records. Many of the newly registered voters were the result of voter registration drives to register voters for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the March 4, 2008 Ohio Democratic primary. The voter registrations that did not match government records were challenged in federal court, on the basis that they did not comply with the federal Help America Vote Act, which mandates that states corroborate voter registration applications with government databases. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled against Brunner, deciding that extra steps must be taken to authenticate these registrants. However, that decision subsequently was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
During the 2008 general election, Ohio experienced an unintended consequence of a new statute that resulted in a brief period of overlap voting, when absentee voting has started and before the close of voter registration. This period ran from September 30 until October 6, due to the newly instituted early voting policy. On August 13, 2008, Brunner ordered county election board officials to establish procedures to enable voters who register to be immediately issued an absentee ballot. Brunner's order was challenged in state and federal court by Ohio Republican Party officials and Republican voters, who argued that Ohio law requires voters to be registered for 30 days before they cast an absentee ballot. Brunner's order ultimately was upheld by both state and federal courts.
During her tenure as Secretary of State, Brunner also established the Voting Right Institute (VRI) to improve voter access to elections in Ohio. The VRI has instituted a "Grads Vote" program which supplies voter registration forms to all graduating high school seniors. The VRI has also partnered with the U.S. Postal Service to include voter registration forms in government moving packets and with the Overseas Vote Foundation to improve online absentee ballot applications for overseas and military voters. She also worked to shield social security information and other private information from public view for millions of online records and coordinated with the Ohio General Assembly to prevent the filing of private information.

#### Other issues

One month before the 2008 United States election, 5% of Ohio mortgages were either severely delinquent or in foreclosure. There were 67,658 foreclosure actions in the first half of 2008. An editorial in The New York Times purported that Republicans may try to use foreclosure lists to block voters. Brunner warned all election boards that involvement in a foreclosure is not, by itself, sufficient basis for challenging enfranchisement.
On entering office, Brunner took immediate action against Republican county elections officials, including Robert T. Bennett, Ohio Republican Party Chairman. At the time, while writing for The Cincinnati Enquirer, columnist Peter Bronson described Brunner as "the most partisan state official in Ohio". More recently, she has been accused of partisanship by her former Secretary of State opponent in the 2008 general election. He claims that she set policy in order to throw out absentee ballots likely to be cast for the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket. The Ohio State Supreme Court supported the Republican argument. Other sources claim that ACORN advises and influences Brunner.
The 2008 general election was expected to be marred by Diebold electronic voting machines that had malfunctioned on vote transfers from the local precinct machines to the county election board headquarters. Brunner is suing Diebold for other types of vote-dropping malfunctions. Fifty-three of eighty-eight counties used the problematic touch screen electronic voting machines. The machines had also mysteriously crashed and their printers had jammed in the 2007 elections. Brunner feels that electronic machines should be avoided until they achieve the same security standards as the computer equipment in the banking and communications industries. She issued a report that both Premier Election Solutions (a Diebold subsidiary) and Hart and Election Systems & Software produce electronic voting systems with severe security flaws.
Brunner has made several specific efforts to alleviate some of the past voting difficulties. 2008 was the first Ohio election that permits absentee voting as a matter of preference without any justification for need. This resulted in a record number of absentee ballots. Additionally, voting machine redistribution has been closely studied with the hope of alleviating long waits in problem areas. Redistribution is based on past turnout, new registrations, any recent purges under the National Voter Registration Act, and the number of ballot issues in the district. Each precinct has been supplied with sufficient paper ballots to accommodate 25% number of voters who voted in the previous presidential election.
Brunner has noted that only incarcerated convicted felons become ineligible to vote in Ohio. Thus, persons incarcerated for misdemeanors and persons detained in prisons awaiting new trials can vote directly from prison.
In fall of 2008, Brunner was challenged in a pair of cases involving the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. In September, in Project Vote (on behalf of Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless) v. Madison County Board of Elections, No. 1:08-cv-02266 (N.D. Ohio), Judge Garvin enjoined the Madison County Board of Elections from adhering to its September 5 announcement that it would disregard Secretary Brunner's directives to issue an absentee ballot to anyone who has not already been registered for 30 days. The Board had threatened an action that the judge determined would violate Section 202 of the Voting Rights Act causing irreparable injury to registered voters who will be unable to receive absentee ballots. On October 27, 2008, in the case The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless v. Brunner, Case No. C206- 896, U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus ruled that in concert with Ohio Revised Code § 3503.02(I) which states: "If a person does not have a fixed place of habitation, but has a shelter or other location at which the person has been a consistent or regular inhabitant and to which the person has the intention of returning, that shelter or other location shall be deemed the person's residence for the purpose of registering to vote." The order mandated that Brunner as Secretary of State "instruct the County Boards of Elections that provisional ballots may not be rejected for failing to list a building address on the provisional ballot envelope if the voter resides at a location that does not have an address." This ruling states that all Ohio counties must allow homeless voters use non-building locations such as park benches as their addresses. At the same time, the court ruled that poll worker error is not a valid reason to reject a provisional ballot. Time said that these rulings brought uniformity in handling provisional ballots to the counties that did not previously exist.
On October 20, 2008, Brunner had to temporarily shut down the Ohio Secretary of State website after it was hacked. The offense was placed under the jurisdiction of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. At the time of the announcement Ohio Governor Ted Strickland noted that Brunner has been the subject of threats and Brunner noted that her office has been assaulted with threats and actual delivery of abuse.
In November 2008, Brunner became involved in a legal battle against two Steve Stivers supporters that relates to the validity of a 1000 provisional ballots in the race for Ohio's 15th congressional district that at the time of recounting had a 149-vote margin and 27,000 absentee ballots to be counted. The case was consolidated with other cases in the United States District Court upon Brunner's request. On December 5, 2008, Stivers' supporters won a ruling in the Ohio Supreme Court that the 1,000 provisional ballots that lacked signatures or had names and signatures in the wrong places be thrown out.

### 2010 campaign for U.S. Senate

On February 17, 2009, Brunner announced that she would be a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010, running against Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher for the Democratic nomination. In September 2009, DSCC Chairman Bob Menendez, who supported Fisher and had been trying to clear the field for him, stated he would actively work against any underfunded candidate. By February 2010, Brunner had significantly less cash on hand than Fisher or likely general election opponent Rob Portman (who would eventually win the seat), but claimed, "I only need enough money to win." Polling in late 2009 and January 2010 showed Brunner to be more competitive than Fisher in a general election matchup against Portman, while Fisher and Brunner were deadlocked in Democratic primary polling. Brunner ultimately lost to Fisher in the May 4, 2010 party primary, 55% to 45%.

### 2014 campaign for Ohio Tenth District Court of Appeals

Brunner was certified as the sole Democratic candidate running for the Ohio Tenth District Court of Appeals seat occupied by incumbent judge Amy O'Grady, who was appointed to the seat by Governor John Kasich in 2013. The 2014 judicial elections are notable for the number of judges on the ballot, with The Columbus Dispatch stating that it was the first time 12 contested judicial seats would appear on the ballot in Franklin County, Ohio. She was the only Democratic nominee for the appellate seat, running against incumbent judge Amy O'Grady. Brunner defeated O'Grady and was elected to a two-year term as Franklin County appeals judge unexpired term in the General Election.

## 2020 Campaign for Ohio Supreme Court

In August 2019, Brunner announced her candidacy to be a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, challenging incumbent Judith L. French. On November 3, 2020, she went on to win the general election with 55% of the vote.

## 2022 Campaign for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court

On June 8, 2021, Brunner announced her candidacy for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court in the November 8, 2022, general election. In a virtual news conference on September 13, 2021, Brunner released a campaign platform that includes support for a statewide criminal sentencing database, a proposal for a permanent Commission on Fairness and Equality in Ohio’s Courts and Legal System, expansion of specialized dockets like drug courts, and what the Cleveland Plain Dealer called "good-government reforms." At the general election held on November 8, 2022, she was defeated by her Republican opponent, fellow associate justice Sharon Kennedy, in a landslide, winning less than 44% of the vote.

## International work

Brunner worked with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) of the US Department of State as a consultant on campaign finance, elections, and ballot issues in the Republic of Serbia during 2012. Brunner also served as an adviser to Serbian misdemeanor court judges on outreach strategies to rebuild the public's confidence in elections systems. The project, named Judicial Reform and Government Accountability, also aims to enable the Serbian government to better detect and prevent corruption in the government. She has been engaged to serve as an adviser through USAID four times, with a trip to Serbia in 2013 assisting the Serbian Minister of Justice with judicial reform.
Brunner also served as an international election observer in Egypt for the 2014 Egyptian constitutional referendum.

## Personal

Brunner is a resident of Columbus, Ohio. She and her husband, Rick, have been married since 1978 and have three adult children. They have also been foster parents to three children. Brunner is an alumna of Whetstone High School in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. Brunner served on the Ohio Student Loan Commission, a nine-member group that guarantees loans for college students, for a term that ended in 1992. Republican Governor John Kasich appointed her to a Democratic seat the Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission in 2011, which was legislated out of existence in 2013. In October 2012, Kasich also appointed her to the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, Marriage and Family Therapist Board. Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman appointed Brunner to the Central Ohio Transit Authority Board in 2013.
In March 2008, Brunner was given the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. She earned the award for challenging the reliability of electronic voting in order to protect the right to vote in Ohio. The award was announced on March 18, 2008. She received the award May 12, 2008. Brunner assumed office in 2007 and ordered paper ballots be provided to any voter who requested one in the March 2008 primary and called for the replacement of all the state's electronic voting systems by the November 2008 presidential election. Her overhaul of the Ohio voting system was considered costly and reckless by some, but after the election was deemed successful by other observers.

## General election results

| Office | Year | Votes for Brunner | % | Republican | Votes | % | Non-Partisan | Votes | % | Non-Partisan | Votes | % |
| Judge of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas | 2000 | 147,487 | 50.94 | John Bender | 141,567 | 49.06 | | | | | | |
| Judge of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas | 2002 | 109,713 | 51.8 | Michael J. Holbrook | 102,050 | 48.2 | | | | | | |
| Ohio Secretary of State | 2006 | 2,104,114 | 55.03 | Greg Hartmann | 1,546,454 | 40.45 | John A. Eastman | 94,706 | 2.48 | Timothy J. Kettler | 78,080 | 2.04 |
| Ohio's Tenth District Court of Appeals | 2014 | 124,701 | 53.07 | Amy O'Grady | 110,293 | 46.93 | | | | | | |
| Ohio's Tenth District Court of Appeals | 2016 | 340,698 | 100.00 | | | | | | | | | |
| Ohio Supreme Court | 2020 | 2,695,072 | 55.34 | Jennifer French | 2,174,820 | 44.66 | | | | | | |