Supreme Court won’t get involved in Ohio dispute; all must be allowed to vote early
/The Supreme Court delivered a victory to President Obama’s reelection campaign Tuesday, saying it would not stay a lower court’s ruling that all voters — not just those in the military — be allowed to vote in the three days before the Nov. 6 election.
The court turned down Ohio’s petition without comment. There were no noted dissents to the decision.
The Obama campaign had sued the state over its decision to end early voting on the Friday before the election for all but members of the military. The campaign said the decision would disproportionately affect poor, elderly and low-income voters, who are most likely to take advantage of early voting, for no good reason.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit agreed. It said that if Ohio was going to open the polls for military voters during the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the election, it must allow all voters to participate.
“While there is a compelling reason to provide more opportunities for military voters to cast their ballots, there is no corresponding satisfactory reason to prevent nonmilitary voters from casting their ballots as well,” the appeals court said.
About 105,000 voters cast their ballots during the three days in question in 2008.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) said the state already provided an unprecedented amount of early voting — the polls opened on Oct. 2 — and that local elections officials needed the three days to prepare for Election Day.
He decided not to ask the full 6th Circuit to review the panel’s decision, and went straight to the Supreme Court.
That put the court in a potentially sensitive position, given the high-profile nature of the Obama campaign’s challenge of voting procedures in a state critical to both Obama and Republican Mitt Romney.
Ohio’s petition went first to Justice Elena Kagan, who is the justice responsible for emergencies arising from the 6th Circuit. She referred the matter to the entire court.
The panel’s ruling said that a decision on whether to open polls during those three days preceding the election could be made by local officials. But Husted said it is important that the state have uniform rules, and responded immediately to the Supreme Court’s action by telling local officials to open polls all three days.
He said they must offer early voting from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday and Monday, and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
Obama for America released the following statement from General Counsel Bob Bauer in reaction to Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision:
“This action from the highest court in the land marks the end of the road in our fight to ensure open voting this year for all Ohioans, including military, veterans, and overseas voters. We now turn our full attention to educating Ohio voters on when and how they can vote along with presenting the clear choice they face when selecting their next President.”
There is another outstanding voting issue in Ohio. A separate 6th Circuit panel overturned the state’s law that required throwing out provisional ballots that had been incorrectly cast because of a poll worker’s mistake.
The court ruled those votes have to be counted, and the state has not yet announced whether it will try to overturn that ruling.
