Judge restores 3 early voting days in Ohio

KANTELE FRANKO

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — A fed­eral judge in Ohio on Fri­day granted a request from Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s cam­paign to give all vot­ers in the swing state the option of cast­ing their bal­lot in per­son dur­ing the three days before Elec­tion Day.

U.S. Dis­trict Judge Peter Econo­mus in Colum­bus issued a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion in the case involv­ing state law that cuts off early vot­ing for most res­i­dents on the Fri­day evening before a Tues­day elec­tion. The law makes an excep­tion for mil­i­tary per­son­nel and Ohio vot­ers liv­ing overseas.

Econo­mus con­cluded that the law was uncon­sti­tu­tional in chang­ing the in-person early vot­ing dead­line and that the state was wrongly valu­ing cer­tain votes above others.

Attor­ney Gen­eral Mike DeWine quickly announced he would appeal the decision.

The judge’s rul­ing said he expects Ohio’s elec­tions chief, Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State Jon Husted, to direct all county elec­tions boards to main­tain a spe­cific, con­sis­tent sched­ule on those three days “in keep­ing with his ear­lier direc­tive that only by doing so can he ensure that Ohio’s elec­tion process is ‘uni­form, acces­si­ble for all, fair, and secure.’”

Calls seek­ing com­ment from Husted’s office and the Obama cam­paign in Ohio were not imme­di­ately returned.

Obama’s cam­paign and Democ­rats sued Husted and DeWine over the legal­ity of the law. They argued every­one should have the chance to vote on those three days before the election.

The Obama cam­paign and Democ­rats said a series of leg­isla­tive changes by state law­mak­ers arbi­trar­ily elim­i­nated the oppor­tu­nity for most Ohioans to vote in per­son on those days, while giv­ing mil­i­tary or over­seas vot­ers the chance to do so.

Attor­neys for the state have said many laws already grant mil­i­tary per­son­nel spe­cial vot­ing accom­mo­da­tions, such as require­ments for states to send absen­tee bal­lots to them 45 days before the elec­tion. And they con­tend local boards need those three days to pre­pare for the election.

But the judge said the vot­ers’ right to cast bal­lots in per­son on those days out­weighs the state’s rea­sons for lim­it­ing that opportunity.

Econo­mus found that the Obama cam­paign was likely to suc­ceed on the mer­its of its claim, and he granted the pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion block­ing Husted from enforc­ing the law.

Ohio is among 32 states, plus the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, that allow vot­ers to cast an early bal­lot by mail or in per­son with­out hav­ing to give a reason.

Econo­mus had pointed out dur­ing an early hear­ing that Ohioans can cast bal­lots by other meth­ods — in per­son on Elec­tion Day or by mail begin­ning 35 days before the elec­tion. Lawyers for the state also noted the mul­ti­ple ways vot­ers can cast a bal­lot this fall, includ­ing cast­ing an early bal­lot in per­son on other days.

Before the law, local boards of elec­tions pre­vi­ously set early vot­ing hours on those three final days, and week­day hours and week­end vot­ing var­ied among the state’s 88 counties.

Democ­rats esti­mated in their law­suit that 93,000 peo­ple voted dur­ing the final three-day win­dow before the 2008 election.

In the wake of Econo­mus’ deci­sion, the Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union of Ohio called on Husted to restore in-person vot­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties dur­ing every week­end in the early vot­ing period, not only the week­end before the election.

Posted by AP News on Aug 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.