Federal Judge Blocks Ohio Voting Restrictions

[applejack]

The Columbus Dispatch

Husted to appeal ruling on early voting limits

By Joe Vardon
The Columbus Dispatch • Thursday September 4, 2014 6:00 PM

A federal judge blocked Republican-backed reductions in early voting opportunities in Ohio for the fall election today.

U.S. District Court Judge Peter C. Economus granted a preliminary injunction against a GOP-backed bill that ended “Golden Week” — when people could register to vote and vote on the same day — and a February directive from Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted that lopped off some weekend and evening hours of early voting in some urban counties.

Husted said he will appeal the ruling “because we can’t simultaneously treat people the same and differently.”

“Today’s ruling kicks the door open to having different rules for voting in each of Ohio’s 88 counties, which is not fair and uniform and was not even acceptable to this court or the plaintiffs previously.”

Economus ruled on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People of Ohio and the League of Women Voters of Ohio, which filed suit with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs, who argued that reductions in early voting disproportionately affect African Americans, who cast early in-person ballots at a higher percentage rate than whites.

Economus ruled that the GOP’s law and Husted’s directive for voting hours this fall “ unconstitutional and in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” The state argued that Ohio already had among the most opportunities in the country for people to vote early, including Husted’s practice of mailing applications for absentee ballots to every registered voter.

Economus’ ruling thus restores early voting Ohio to a period of 35 days from Ohio (instead of 28, set by the GOP’s Senate Bill 238), meaning if the decision is upheld Ohioans will be able to begin casting ballots Sept. 30. Husted is required to direct all counties to host early voting hours in the evenings on weekdays, beginning Oct. 20.

Husted is also not permitted to prevent individual counties from further expanding their own early voting hours.

In June, Economus ordered Husted to set in-person early voting hours for the final three days before Election Day and barred him or any other secretary of state from restricting or eliminating those hours in the future.

“This ruling will safeguard the vote for thousands of Ohioans during the midterm election," said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, in a press release. “If these cuts had been allowed to remain in place, many voters would have lost a critical opportunity to participate in our democratic process this November. This is a huge victory for Ohio voters and for all those who believe in protecting the integrity of our elections.”

Republican legislative leaders were unhappy with the decision.

“Apparently the judges make the law now with regards to these issues, and that’s not a very good solution,” said Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, who also did not like that Economus did not allow the legislature to join the lawsuit.

“It’s a state issue. It’s not a federal issue.”

The ruling concludes with a message to lawmakers that before the next election, the General Assembly is “charged with the responsibility of passing legislation consistent with this memorandum.”

“The Ohio legislature doesn’t take marching orders from a federal judge,” said Rep. Matt Huffman, R-Lima, the No. 2 House leader. “A federal judge knows that.”

Huffman said it was interesting that Economus struck down the prior law and told lawmakers to “take another crack at it.”

“If the judge wants to write the law, I suppose he can go ahead and do that. In the past six or eight years, we’re guessing what the federal judge will rule constitutional. It continues to be a dangerous precedent that the federal court sets in deciding what state law should be.”

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald issued a statement saying: “Over the last four years, this administration has stood up repeatedly to oppose shameful voter suppression tactics and protect the interests of the working families we serve here in Cuyahoga County. As we have said all along, the right to vote is fundamental and should never be abridged solely to advance a narrow political agenda. I applaud the Southern District for affirming these basic facts today and acting swiftly to restore the Golden Week, preserve evening and weekend voting, and ensure that local boards of election can set voting hours that are most appropriate for their jurisdiction.”

State Sen. Nina Turner, D-Cleveland, who is running against Husted, said, “This is a great day for Ohio voters. Despite efforts to restrict and reduce the opportunities for Ohioans to cast a ballot, the court has thankfully sided with voters once again. While we should not have to rely on federal courts to ensure working Ohioans have convenient options to cast a ballot, this was the right decision.

“I urge Secretary Husted and Attorney General DeWine to refrain from appealing this decision, an action that would only create confusion a month before early voting is set to begin. It is time to focus on the upcoming election and ensure voters are educated about their rights.”

State Rep. Alicia Reece, Cincinnati Democratic who heads the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, said, “Once again, the courts have reaffirmed the position that there is no room in Ohio for any legislation that makes it harder for citizens to vote. While we celebrate this victory today, we must also realize that more work remains in the fight to establish a permanent set of basic voting rights in Ohio. I urge leaders in Columbus to finally overcome past partisan politics and work together to secure these voting protections permanently in our constitution for all Ohioans.”

Dispatch reporter Jim Siegel contributed to this story.

Here is the original issue from a couple years back.

[TimothyC]

Supreme Court Blocks Early Voting in Ohio

The U.S. Supreme Court shortened early voting in Ohio with a last-minute order, blocking a lower-court ruling that required the secretary of state to start balloting Tuesday.

The high court in a brief written order Monday granted Ohio's request to block a trial judge's injunction requiring 35 days of early voting plus evening and additional Sunday hours. The court's action split the justices 5-4 along ideological lines, with court's conservative majority siding with Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican.

The order means that early voting for Congress, Ohio governor and the state legislature will start Oct. 7 and run for 28 days. The decision eliminates a several-day window in which residents can register to vote and cast ballots on the same day.

Voting in Ohio receives particular attention because of the state's status as a crucial battleground in presidential elections. While Monday's order affects this fall's election, the justices didn't address the merits of case, leaving the early voting schedule for the 2016 presidential election open to further litigation.

The high court in its order didn't explain its reasons for blocking the lower court injunction.

Challengers in the case, which include the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Ohio League of Women Voters, have argued the early voting schedule Mr. Husted and the Ohio legislature put in place violates federal election law, unfairly burdening African-American and lower-income voters. Such voting blocs historically have favored Democratic candidates.

Mr. Husted in a statement said the Supreme Court order validates his efforts to run early voting uniformly across the state.

Thanks to SCOTUSBlog, the order is here and the new directives from Husted are here

Heck, here is the ScotusBlog article:

Early voting in Ohio blocked (UPDATED)

UPDATE 6:10 p.m. Justice Elena Kagan turned down without comment a separate request by Ohio’s legislature for the same kind of order postponing some of the early voting options. The legislature has been allowed into the controversy only as a “friend of the court,” not as a full party. Kagan chose to act on that request without referring it to her colleagues. Meanwhile, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has issued this new directive on when early voting will be allowed.

————-

With just sixteen hours before polling stations were to open in Ohio, the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon blocked voters from beginning tomorrow to cast their ballots in this year’s general election. By a vote of five to four, the Justices put on hold a federal judge’s order providing new opportunities for voting before election day, beyond what state leaders wanted.

The order will remain in effect until the Court acts on an appeal by state officials. If that is denied, then the order lapses. It is unclear when that scenario will unfold. The state’s petition has not yet been filed formally.

The practical effect of the order will mean that, at the least, early voting will not be allowed this week — a period that supporters of early balloting have called “Golden Week.” That permits voters to register and cast their ballots on the same day.

Depending upon the timing of the state’s filing of a petition for review and the Court’s action on it, Monday’s order may also mean that early voting will not be permitted on most Sundays between now and election day, November 4, and will not be permitted during evening hours — that is, after 5 p.m.

Early voting during “Golden Week,” on Sundays, and in evening hours are the opportunities that civil rights groups have said are most important to black and low-income voters and the homeless. State officials, however, contended that those arrangements would raise the risk of voter fraud, and would cost too much for county election boards to implement.

Monday’s order had the support of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito,, Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas, although their votes were not noted in the order. It would have taken five votes to support such an order.

Dissenting were Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. They would have denied the request of the Ohio attorney general and secretary of state to postpone the decision in favor of more early voting, a ruling early this month by U.S. District Judge Peter C. Economus of Columbus.

The judge’s order had been upheld by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, but that ruling no longer controls the case now that it has moved to the Supreme Court. A plea by state officials and the Ohio legislature for the Sixth Circuit Court to reconsider the case en banc is no longer necessary to block the early voting.

The Supreme Court could have hurried along the process of reviewing the case. Ohio officials had suggested that the Court might treat their request for a delay as a formal petition for review, and to grant it. The Court did not do that. It left it to the state to file a new petition, as such, and when that is done, the Court would choose whether to review it.

Even if the state moves quickly to file a petition, and even if the Court grants review and gives it very rapid review, those actions may not come in time to save for this year the early voting opportunities that civil rights groups had sought and that Judge Economus had granted.

As a result of the Court’s new order, Ohioans will have twenty-eight instead of thirty-five days on which they may cast their ballots early for the general election. The legislature had ordered that reduction from a 2005 law’s provisions. The bar to most Sunday and evening early voting was imposed by Secretary of State John Husted. Both he and the state attorney general, Michael DeWine, are Republicans.

It is generally assumed — and often borne out by actual vote counting — that black, lower-income and homeless voters are the ones who most often take advantage of early voting, because they have less opportunity to do so on election day. Sunday voting is said to be very important to black voters, who are organized in groups to go to the polls for early voting after Sunday church services — the so-called “Souls to the Polls” campaign. That is the group of voters that tends to vote most often for Democratic candidates.

One of the arguments that Ohio officials have made, and made again to the Supreme Court, is that Ohio is out in front of most states in the number of early voting days it allows, and that should be sufficient. The expansion of early voting in Ohio was adopted by the state legislature nine years ago in the wake of major problems of delay at the polls in the 2004 elections.

The case as it is now unfolding before the Supreme Court involves major constitutional issues, especially on how far the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of legal equality applies to early voting opportunities, and how courts are to apply Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Section 2 has become newly important to challengers of voting restrictions since the Supreme Court last year struck down a key part of the 1965 Act, the part that triggers federal government veto power over changes in state election laws that may be racially discriminatory.

In a series of court battles in recent years, restrictions on early voting opportunities and requirements for voter IDs have emerged most prominently.

The Supreme Court may next face a case from Wisconsin focusing on the voter ID question. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has allowed that ID requirement to be in effect for this year’s election.

Before I hear any more bitching about how it isn't fair to minorities I want to remind everyone that EVERY LAST REGISTERED VOTER in the state of Ohio got an application for early voting by mail delivered via the postal service earlier this year. Mine has been sitting in my inbox for the better part of a month.

[Simon_Jester]

In which case, why was any other form of early voting even offered?

Since the state still saw fit to extend this service to some counties, it would seem reasonable to require that it be extended to all counties.

[TimothyC]

In which case, why was any other form of early voting even offered?

Don't know, but the NAACP & LWV sued for the longer windows for early voting, opening it up so that people could register and vote on the same day.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. There's the obvious issue of homeless voters (who may not have a fixed mailing address). Again, I'm simply pointing out that if it is established that there should be a window of duration X for early voting, then this window should be of equal length everywhere. It should not be shortened in districts deemed likely to vote Democrat.

[TimothyC]

Hm. There's the obvious issue of homeless voters (who may not have a fixed mailing address). Again, I'm simply pointing out that if it is established that there should be a window of duration X for early voting, then this window should be of equal length everywhere. It should not be shortened in districts deemed likely to vote Democrat.

It is uniform. I linked to Husted's directives in my first post. I'll even do it again.

[Simon_Jester]

Wait, sorry.

I was basing off the second paragraph of the linked article in the original post:

"U.S. District Court Judge Peter C. Economus granted a preliminary injunction against a GOP-backed bill that ended “Golden Week” — when people could register to vote and vote on the same day — and a February directive from Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted that lopped off some weekend and evening hours of early voting in some urban counties. "

Should I have interpreted that to mean that those weekend and evening hours did exist only in those counties? If so, Husted would, a priori, be justified in removing them. Although it would be more in line with the principles of justice to expand them for all.

[Highlord Laan]

By a vote of five to four

Gee, I wonder which shitpieces got a stipend upgrade?

[Gandalf]

This might be something I miss by living on the fun side of the Pacific, but why is it an issue that people can register and vote on the same day?

[Steve]

Perceptions that it can lead to voter fraud since you have no time to vette the registration and make sure the person actually lives where they say and such.

At least that's what it sounds like to me.

[Highlord Laan]

Perceptions that it can lead to voter fraud since you have no time to vette the registration and make sure the person actually lives where they say and such.

At least that's what it sounds like to me.

It's only fraud of it allows Democrats to vote.

[Simon_Jester]

Still wondering if there are any proven instances of same-day registration and voting being used to commit fraud on a statistically significant scale?

[Gandalf]

Still wondering if there are any proven instances of same-day registration and voting being used to commit fraud on a statistically significant scale?

Considering that evidence of such a thing would make these laws far less controversial, and thus would be included in the article, I'm inclined to say no.

[TimothyC]

This might be something I miss by living on the fun side of the Pacific, but why is it an issue that people can register and vote on the same day?

Ohio Law requires that the county Boards of Elections (who run the elections at the sub-state level) verify the registrations of all voters prior to them casting a vote. The republican tolerance for Democrats dicking around with the processes is at this point non-existent after the combination of the "It helps in Ohio that we have democrats in charge of the machines" and explicit decision on the part of former State Secretary of State (highest election official in Ohio) to fight requests for registration information sharing with the county governments. This is why the registration process (which could be done by providing something as simple as a phone bill and the last four digits of your Social Security Number (which do not have to be verified) should not happen on the same day as voting in the general pool.

[Maraxus]

This might be something I miss by living on the fun side of the Pacific, but why is it an issue that people can register and vote on the same day?

Ohio Law requires that the county Boards of Elections (who run the elections at the sub-state level) verify the registrations of all voters prior to them casting a vote. The republican tolerance for Democrats dicking around with the processes is at this point non-existent after the combination of the "It helps in Ohio that we have democrats in charge of the machines" and explicit decision on the part of former State Secretary of State (highest election official in Ohio) to fight requests for registration information sharing with the county governments. This is why the registration process (which could be done by providing something as simple as a phone bill and the last four digits of your Social Security Number (which do not have to be verified) should not happen on the same day as voting in the general pool.

Lol, that's pretty rich coming from Ken Blackwell's Party. It's kinda sad that the OH GOP is so thin-skinned that they're willing to willing to fight early voting (which they never liked anyway) because Obama said something that was clearly a joke at one rally.

But keep fighting the good fight! I'm sure one day you'll convince people that voter fraud is a super serious issue.

For the record, there are eight states with election day voter registration, not including two states that only have it for presidential election. My beloved home state is going to have election day voter registration next year. North Dakota, noted bastion of corruption and crooked elections, doesn't even have voter registration. The idea that election day registration somehow leads to voting fraud seems pretty baseless.

[TimothyC]

Lol, that's pretty rich coming from Ken Blackwell's Party. It's kinda sad that the OH GOP is so thin-skinned that they're willing to willing to fight early voting (which they never liked anyway) because Obama said something that was clearly a joke at one rally.

I don't think I've ever actually defended Blackwell. Heck, I've never even voted for the man (In '06 I voted for Petro and then Strickland). I'd also like to ask you if the comment was made by a republican from an area so rife with fraud it is a joke if you would be so cavalier?

For the record, there are eight states with election day voter registration, not including two states that only have it for presidential election. My beloved home state is going to have election day voter registration next year. North Dakota, noted bastion of corruption and crooked elections, doesn't even have voter registration. The idea that election day registration somehow leads to voting fraud seems pretty baseless.

31 instances where we know there was a credible incident. The NYC Department of Investigations report Tells a different story., but I'm not getting sucked into another discussion about this.