Ohio elections chief cancels order on early voting

ANN SANNER

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — Ohio’s elec­tions chief on Fri­day can­celled his order that barred coun­ties from set­ting vot­ing hours on dis­puted early-voting days in the pres­i­den­tial bat­tle­ground state, while a legal bat­tle brought by Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s cam­paign continues.

The moves comes after a fed­eral judge this week ordered Sec­re­tary of State Jon Husted to per­son­ally appear at a court hear­ing over the swing state’s early vot­ing rules.

Husted, a Repub­li­can, said he was try­ing to pro­vide guid­ance to the state’s 88 county elec­tion boards fol­low­ing a court rul­ing last week that restores early vot­ing for all vot­ers dur­ing the three days before Elec­tion Day.

The state is appeal­ing the deci­sion to the 6th U.S. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals in Cincin­nati. Fif­teen mil­i­tary groups who had joined the state in the law­suit also filed their for­mal appeal notice on Friday.

Husted had issued a direc­tive to boards on Tues­day, say­ing they were “strictly pro­hib­ited” from deter­min­ing hours for the Fri­day, Sat­ur­day, Sun­day or Mon­day before the elec­tion because a court could later change them. Plus, he said it would con­fuse voters.

Husted rescinded that order on Fri­day and requested in court fil­ings that the fed­eral court in Colum­bus hold of, or stay, its rul­ing until the state’s appeal has been completed.

William Consovoy, Husted’s lawyer, said in the fil­ing that absent a stay or a direc­tive from Husted, “there is a real con­cern that county boards of elec­tions will begin issu­ing early in-person absen­tee vot­ing sched­ules for the three-day period before the Sec­re­tary can issue a uni­form schedule.”

Consovoy said such county action would lead to “sig­nif­i­cant admin­is­tra­tive dif­fi­cul­ties and fur­ther voter confusion.”

Attor­neys for Obama’s cam­paign have urged U.S. Dis­trict Judge Peter Econo­mus in court fil­ings this week to enforce his ruling.

Ohio is among 32 states, plus the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, that allow vot­ers to cast early bal­lots in per­son with­out hav­ing to give reasons.

At issue is a part of the state’s 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.

Obama’s cam­paign and Democ­rats had sued Husted and Ohio Attor­ney Gen­eral Mike DeWine over the law. They argued every­one should have the chance to vote on those three days before the elec­tion. They said a series of leg­isla­tive changes by state law­mak­ers had arbi­trar­ily elim­i­nated the oppor­tu­nity for most Ohio res­i­dents 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 also need those three days to pre­pare for the election.

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

The judge issued a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion on Aug. 31, con­clud­ing that the state’s law was uncon­sti­tu­tional in chang­ing the in-person early vot­ing dead­line and that the state was wrongly valu­ing cer­tain votes above others.

In his rul­ing, Econo­mus said he expected 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.’”

Consovoy said Husted believed his direc­tive was con­sis­tent with the judge’s rul­ing, but had since learned that the fed­eral court didn’t view it that way.

“The Sec­re­tary would never inten­tion­ally con­tra­vene an order issued by the fed­eral dis­trict court or any other court — and this case is no excep­tion,” Consovoy wrote, adding the direc­tive was rescinded.

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 counties.

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

Posted by AP News on Sep 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.