CINCINNATI - About 200,000 newly registered Ohio voters will be affected by a federal appeals court ruling that requires the state to do more to help county election boards verify eligibility, an elections spokesman said yesterday.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner estimated that an initial review found at least 200,000 potential voters reported driver’s license numbers or Social Security numbers that don’t match records in other government databases, said Kevin Kidder, a spokesman for the office.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati sided with the Ohio Republican Party on Tuesday and ordered Ms. Brunner to set up a system that provides those names to county elections boards.

The GOP contends the information will help prevent fraud.

“Things already are in motion to comply,” Mr. Kidder said. “We’re working to establish these processes on how we can make this work. The computer work actually began last week.”

Ms. Brunner, a Democrat, said yesterday she is concerned the court decision is a veiled attempt at disenfranchising voters. Ms. Brunner said she’ll urge counties not to force these people to use provisional ballots.

Ms. Brunner has said that new-voter registrations were being cross-checked with databases run by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle and the Social Security Administration, and that was all that the federal Help Americans Vote Act required her to do.

The 6th Circuit took her to task for that interpretation of the law, saying it required her to help county election boards ferret out mismatches, rather than leave it to local boards to go through Ms. Brunner’s list of mismatches.

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thanks Hulu!

You’ve seen them in interactive focus groups, and most recently in the Town hall debate: The Undecideds.

It makes a normal voter wonder, “Where in the heck to they find these people?”

The answer was inadvertently revealed at msnbc.com by Domenico Montanaro in his interview with “undecided” voter Oliver Clark, one of the Town hall debate questioners …

…the Sunday before last, I received a call from the Gallop Poll. They asked a few questions regarding my choice in the Presidential election. They asked who I would vote for. I said most likely I would be voting for Barack Obama. They followed with, “is there any chance that you would change your mind“? I said “Of course anything is possible.” They then asked me as an uncommitted voter would I like to participate in the Town hall debate. I said “Of course!”

Of course! It’s so clear to me now. This man is obviously undecided.

So, next time a pollster calls me and asks me if there is any chance I might change my mind, instead of telling them, “No,” I’ll just say, “When monkeys fly out of my ____,” and voila! You might just see El Nuko in the next Frank Luntz focus group!