Ohio appeals to Supreme Court on early voting

ANN SANNER

JULIE CARR SMYTH

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — Ohio’s elec­tion chief on Tues­day appealed a rul­ing that rein­states the final three early vot­ing days in the bat­tle­ground state, call­ing a deci­sion last week by a fed­eral appeals court “an unprece­dented intru­sion” into how states run elections.

Sec­re­tary of State Jon Husted asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the state Leg­is­la­ture or fed­eral courts should set Ohio elec­tion laws.

Husted, a Repub­li­can, also asked the court to delay the lower court’s deci­sion while the Supreme Court decides whether to take the case.

Husted said Friday’s deci­sion by the 6th U.S. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals would affect how elec­tions are run in all 50 states. The appeals court in Cincin­nati affirmed a lower court rul­ing and returned dis­cre­tion to set hours on the final three days to local boards of elections.

“This rul­ing not only doesn’t make legal sense, it doesn’t make prac­ti­cal sense,” Husted, a Repub­li­can, said in a statement.

He said it opened up the chance for Ohio’s 88 county boards of elec­tions to set dif­fer­ent rules, while at the same time order­ing that all vot­ers be treated the same. Husted said he will be con­sult­ing with those boards to craft a direc­tive that sets uni­form hours on the three dis­puted days in the event his appeal isn’t successful.

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s cam­paign and Democ­rats had sued Husted and Ohio’s attor­ney gen­eral for cut­ting 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.

Bob Bauer, gen­eral coun­sel for Obama for Amer­ica, said the cam­paign had no rea­son to believe that the state would find suc­cess at the Supreme Court level.

“There is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the state’s arbi­trary actions this year in try­ing to deny the vast major­ity of its vot­ers access to open polling places for the last three days before the elec­tion,” Bauer said in a statement.

Before the changes to the Ohio law, local boards of elec­tions pre­vi­ously set early vot­ing hours on the 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. They argued every­one should have the chance to vote on those three days. They said elim­i­nat­ing the oppor­tu­nity for most Ohio res­i­dents to vote in per­son on those days, while giv­ing mil­i­tary or over­seas vot­ers the chance to do so, led to unequal treatment.

The deci­sion the 6th Cir­cuit affirmed came from U.S. Dis­trict Judge Peter Econo­mus on Aug. 31. He said he expected Husted to direct all county elec­tions boards to main­tain a spe­cific, con­sis­tent sched­ule on the three final days before Elec­tion Day.

Attor­neys for the state 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, 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.

Husted’s announce­ment that he would take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court came on a day when Obama was cam­paign­ing in the state, tim­ing a rally at the Ohio State Uni­ver­sity cam­pus to the final day of voter registration.

Obama’s fel­low Democ­rats crit­i­cized Husted for fos­ter­ing voter con­fu­sion. State Sen. Nina Turner of Cleve­land said Husted could set uni­form statewide hours on the final three days before the elec­tion if that is his goal.

Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­tic Leader Eric Kear­ney accused Husted of using delay tac­tics to impede vot­ers’ rights.

“It is now clear that Sec­re­tary of State Jon Husted will stop at noth­ing to deny Ohioans full and equal access to the polls,” he said.

Posted by AP News on Oct 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.