[Cite as State ex rel. Painter v. Brunner, 127 Ohio St.3d 463, 2010-Ohio-6461.] 

THE STATE EX REL. PAINTER ET AL. v. BRUNNER, SECY. OF STATE, ET AL. 

[Cite as State ex rel. Painter v. Brunner, 127 Ohio St.3d 463, 2010-Ohio-6461.] 

Motions to intervene as respondents granted — Motion for temporary injunctive 

relief granted — Alternative writ in mandamus granted, and briefing 

schedule established — Complaint for writ of prohibition dismissed.

(No. 2010-2205 — Submitted December 28, 2010 — Decided 

December 29, 2010.) 

IN MANDAMUS and PROHIBITION. 

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{¶ 1} Relators have filed a complaint seeking writs of mandamus and 

prohibition and a motion for temporary injunctive relief. 

{¶ 2} It is ordered, sua sponte, that an alternative writ of mandamus is 

granted, and the following briefing schedule is set for the presentation of evidence 

and filing of briefs pursuant to S.Ct.Prac.R. 10.6: Relators shall file their brief 

and evidence no later than January 3, 2011, and respondents shall file their briefs 

and evidence no later than January 5, 2011. 

{¶ 3} The parties shall serve all documents filed in this case by personal 

service, facsimile transmission, or e-mail on the date of the filing. The Clerk’s 

office shall refuse to file any reply briefs or requests for extension of time in this 

case. 

{¶ 4} It is further ordered that the motions of Tracie Hunter and the 

Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and Ohio Democratic Party for leave 

to intervene as respondents are granted. 

{¶ 5} It is further ordered that respondents and their agents, servants, 

employees, attorneys, and other persons acting on their behalf are hereby stayed 

from opening the provisional ballot envelopes pending further order of the court. 
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{¶ 6} It is further ordered that the complaint for a writ of prohibition is 

dismissed. 

 PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER,

and CUPP, JJ., concur. 

 BROWN, C.J., concurs separately. 

__________________ 

 BROWN, C.J., concurring. 

{¶ 7} On November 2, 2010, relator John Williams and Tracie Hunter 

were candidates for the elected office of judge of the Hamilton County Court of 

Common Pleas, Juvenile Division. According to the most recent count of the 

Hamilton County Board of Elections, only 23 votes, out of nearly 230,000 votes 

cast, separate the totals for the two competing candidates. However, the votes of 

849 Hamilton County electors who voted provisionally were not counted, based 

on the board’s conclusion that these electors voted in the wrong precinct. 

{¶ 8} According to a statement submitted by two Hamilton County 

Board of Elections members, many of these 849 Hamilton County electors arrived 

at the correct multiprecinct voting location but were erroneously directed by poll 

workers to vote a ballot formulated for the wrong precinct — that is, a precinct 

other than the precinct in which the voter resided. In many cases, voters were 

simply directed to the wrong table.1 The question presented is whether Ohio 

electors otherwise qualified to vote should be disenfranchised when errors by 

election officials result in their votes being cast in the wrong precinct. I believe 

 

1 I suspect that some Hamilton County voters in multiprecinct locations may similarly have been 

mistakenly directed by poll workers to vote on voting machines programmed with ballots for 

precincts other than the one in which the voter resided. However, unlike votes cast provisionally 

on paper and segregated in provisional-ballot envelopes, any machine-cast regular votes, even if 

cast in incorrect precincts, were immediately commingled. Those votes have since been counted. 

I question whether the disparate treatment of voters who voted regular ballots in the wrong 

precinct and voters who voted provisionally in the wrong precinct raises equal protection 

concerns. 
January Term, 2010 

3

the answer is no. An elector’s fundamental constitutional right to participate in 

our democracy and cast a ballot must prevail over a technical application of the 

statutory law, particularly in the face of a poll worker’s mistake. Nevertheless, I 

reluctantly concur in the court’s grant of an expedited alternative writ that will 

allow presentation of evidence and briefs prior to this court’s resolution of the 

merits of this case. I write separately to explain why my concurrence is reluctant. 

{¶ 9} In my view, relators’ claims appear to lack merit. Additionally, 

respondents have presented highly convincing arguments that relators’ claims for 

extraordinary relief should ultimately be dismissed. I am not prepared to 

conclude, however, that respondents have met the standard required for dismissal 

of an original action at this procedural stage, i.e., the S.Ct.Prac.R. 10.5 

determination. That is, I do not find it beyond doubt, after presuming the truth of 

all material factual allegations of relators’ complaint and making all reasonable 

inferences in their favor, that relators are not entitled to the requested 

extraordinary relief in mandamus. See State ex rel. Duke Energy Ohio, Inc. v. 

Hamilton Cty. Court of Common Pleas, 126 Ohio St.3d 41, 2010-Ohio-2450, 930 

N.E.2d 299, ¶ 13. 

{¶ 10} Elections are seldom perfectly administered. Relators argue that 

Ohio statutes2

 provide that votes cast in the wrong precinct are to be excluded. In 

my view, however, when a voter votes in the wrong precinct as a result of error by 

election officials, the fundamental constitutional rights of a qualified Ohio elector 

to have his or her vote counted in a race in which the elector was clearly qualified 

to vote must prevail. And those most fundamental constitutional rights under the 

Ohio and United States Constitutions should prevail over a technical violation of 

R.C. 3599.12(A)(1), which prohibits a person from voting “in a precinct in which 

that person is not a legally qualified elector.” 

 

2

 See, e.g., R.C. 3503.01(A), 3505.181(C)(1), and 3599.12(A)(1). 
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{¶ 11} The record before us clearly supports the inference that election 

officials in Hamilton County may have made mistakes in administering the 

election as to a subset of provisional voters. For example, there are allegations 

that some of the voters at issue had recently been reassigned to new precincts, 

some as a result of redrawn precinct lines, and some had been reassigned to new 

multiprecinct voting locations. Despite these challenges, these voters arrived to 

vote at the proper location where, through no fault of their own, they were 

directed by poll workers to the wrong table. As a result, these voters 

inadvertently voted in the wrong precinct. In these circumstances, the 

fundamental constitutional rights of the elector require that the votes be counted. 

A federal judge has issued an order to election officials to investigate and 

determine whether poll-worker error contributed to electors’ voting in the wrong 

precinct. No one has suggested that Hamilton County poll workers intentionally 

misdirected voters who appeared at multiprecinct voting locations. But if an 

investigation discloses that poll workers did err, albeit innocently, the interests of 

affected Ohio electors in having their votes counted should, in my view, prevail. 

{¶ 12} My view is shared by two Ohio federal district court judges who 

believe that issues of equal protection and due process are implicated by the 

failure to count votes in these circumstances. These federal courts have 

recognized that the United States Constitution prohibits the exclusion of votes 

from the official election count when a vote was improperly cast in the wrong 

precinct because of poll-worker error. The federal constitution is the supreme law 

of the land, and no Ohio statute that, as applied, conflicts with a voter’s 

constitutional rights can prevail. 

{¶ 13} In Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless v. Brunner, S.D. 

Ohio (E.D.) No. C2-06-896, the United States District Court for the Southern 

District of Ohio, Eastern Division, entered a consent decree in April 2010 in a 

case challenging Ohio’s identification and provisional-ballot laws. The decree 
January Term, 2010 

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stated that its purpose included the following: ensuring that “the fundamental 

right to vote is fully protected for registered and qualified voters who lack the 

identification required by the Ohio Voted ID Laws” and ensuring that “voters will 

not be deprived of their fundamental right to vote because of failures by poll 

workers to follow Ohio law.” The decree further noted that the Supremacy 

Clause, Clause 2, Article VI of the United States Constitution, provides that the 

federal constitution constitutes “the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in 

every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any 

State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” Consistent with these purposes, the decree 

specified that boards of elections may not reject a provisional ballot cast by a 

voter who uses only the last four digits of his or her Social Security number as 

identification if the voter has cast a provisional ballot in the correct polling place 

but — for reasons attributable to poll-worker error — in the wrong precinct. 

{¶ 14} Similarly, in a case arising out of the same circumstances that 

underlie this case, i.e., the November 2, 2010 race for Hamilton County Juvenile 

Court judge, Chief Judge Susan J. Dlott of the federal district court issued a 

preliminary injunction in Hunter v. Hamilton Cty. Bd. of Elections, S.D. Ohio 

(W.D.) No. 1:10-cv-820, 2010 WL 4878957. Judge Dlott granted a preliminary 

injunction “insofar as it seeks an order commanding [the board and its members] 

to investigate whether provisional ballots cast in the correct polling location but 

wrong precinct were improperly cast because of poll worker error.” Judge Dlott 

reasoned that because the board of elections had previously counted 26 

provisional ballots cast at the Hamilton County board office but in the wrong 

precinct due to “clear poll worker error,” its failure to apply similar scrutiny to 

other provisional ballots cast at the correct polling place but in the wrong precinct 

“raises equal protection concerns.” To prevent irreparable harm, Judge Dlott 

ordered that the board of elections “examine all 849 faulty provisional ballots for 
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poll worker error.” Judge Dlott further ordered that the board “immediately begin 

an investigation into whether poll worker error contributed to the rejection of the 

849 provisional ballots now in issue and include in the recount of the race for 

Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge any provisional ballots improperly cast for 

reasons attributable to poll worker error.” That order was appealed to the United 

States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and that appeal remains pending. 

{¶ 15} In my view, the filing of this action raises significant issues of 

comity and jurisdictional priority, which weigh heavily against the issuance of 

extraordinary relief in the form of a writ of mandamus. This court should not 

interfere with the litigation of these issues already underway in the federal courts. 

It is difficult to see the filing of this action as anything other than an attempt by 

relators to collaterally attack a federal court order issued in federal litigation. As 

argued by respondents, the requested writ would place the board and the secretary 

in “an untenable position of potential competing court orders.” Moreover, the 

relators’ filing of an original action in this court did not occur until after the Sixth 

Circuit dissolved a stay it had previously issued. That is, relators turned to this 

court to seek a stay and other relief only after being denied similar relief by the 

federal court. 

{¶ 16} Relator John W. Painter, a Hamilton County elector who voted in 

the November 2, 2010 election, and whose vote has presumably already been 

included in the vote count, asserts that his vote is subject to dilution if any of the 

ballots at issue that were voted provisionally are counted. However, the relators 

do not contend, nor is there any reason to suspect, that the provisional voters at 

issue were not qualified to vote for the countywide judge’s race at issue. As to 

that race, whether a qualified Hamilton County voter cast his ballot in the wrong 

precinct is irrelevant. 

{¶ 17} I concur in the court’s order allowing intervention by Tracie 

Hunter, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, and the Ohio Democratic 
January Term, 2010 

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Party and in the court’s dismissal of relators’ claim seeking a writ of prohibition. 

I further concur in the court’s order of a stay that will, until this original action is 

resolved, preclude respondents from opening the envelopes containing ballots cast 

provisionally by 849 Hamilton County electors. The secrecy of those votes must 

be protected. Finally, as discussed above, I reluctantly concur in the court’s grant 

of an expedited alternative writ that will allow presentation of evidence and briefs 

prior to this court’s resolution of the merits. I would, however, allow more time 

for the presentation of evidence and briefs than provided by the majority. 

__________________ 

 Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, L.L.P., R. Joseph Parker, W. Stuart Dornette, 

and John B. Nalbandian, for relators. 

 Richard Cordray, Attorney General, and Richard N. Coglianese, Erick D. 

Gale, and Michael J. Schuler, Assistant Attorneys General, for respondent 

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. 

 Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and David T. 

Stevenson, James W. Harper, Colleen M. McCafferty, and Thomas Grossmann, 

Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for respondent Hamilton County Board of 

Elections. 

 Gerhardstein & Branch Co., L.P.A., Jennifer L. Branch, and Alphonse A. 

Gerhardstein, for intervening respondent Tracie Hunter. 

Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur, L.L.P., Caroline H. Gentry, and Sheena 

L. Little; and The Chandra Law Firm, L.L.C., and Subodh Chandra, for 

intervening respondent Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. 

McTigue Law Group, Donald J. McTigue, and Mark A. McGinnis, for 

intervening respondent Ohio Democratic Party. 

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