by Evie Stone

The Supreme Court has issued a decision backing Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner in her dispute with the state GOP over voter registrations. The Court's ruling overturns a Tuesday decision by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that would have required the Secretary of State's office to provide local officials with a list of recently registered voters whose registration information doesn't match their drivers' license numbers or Social Security cards. That list apparently includes about 200,000 of the 666,000 Ohioans who have registered this year.

The Ohio GOP says they are trying to prevent fraud in a state that could be crucial on November 4th. The Democrats say most of the discrepancies are due to clerical errors, and the Republicans' case is merely an effort to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters. It's worth noting that the GOP has not provided any specific evidence of voter fraud, and proven cases of fraud are historically very rare — despite being the subject of spirited debate every election season.

The Court's decision today was not based on the merit's of the Ohio GOP complaint. Rather, it says the party was not eligible to file the suit in the first place.