Federal court rules Ohio counties can have early voting on weekend before electi

[apples]

Federal court rules Ohio counties can have early voting on weekend before election

A federal appeals court panel ruled Friday that Ohio counties can keep polls open for in-person early voting the three days before the election, delivering a win to the Obama campaign after months of legal wrangling over the battleground state’s election rules.

The campaign had gone to court to challenge a state law that for most voters would have ended early voting the final weekend before the election, one of a slew of restrictions instituted by the GOP-dominated Ohio legislature last year in what critics said was an effort to tamp down turnout by the minority voters who typically make greater use of early voting.

With the ruling, almost all of those restrictions have now been reversed, either by the courts or by the legislature itself, which repealed many of the restrictions after opponents gathered enough signatures to put them to a referendum. The rules in place in Ohio will now be largely the same as those in 2008.

http://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/10/05/federal-court-rules-ohio-counties-can-have-early-voting-weekend-before-election/WJjV03Zzq9uvZp3RJH75iK/story.html

[GeronL]

Amazing.

Pretty soon all Democrat areas will have polls open longer too

[apples]

Amazing.

Pretty soon all Democrat areas will have polls open longer too

yep that is the plan, and the only way he can win...cheating.

[Stan In FL]

They won't be happy until democrats can all vote twice in general elections

[apples]

    Obama campaign blasts Ohio voting case appeal

The Obama campaign blasted the state of Ohio for appealing a key voting rights case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"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. This has been the unanimous conclusion of the courts that have considered this case," Obama campaign General Counsel Bob Bauer said in a statement. "The Secretary of State has now chosen to extend the litigation and to ask the United States Supreme Court to intervene just four weeks before the election. We have no reason to believe that he will meet with any more success now than before.

http://www.politico.com/politico44/whiteboard/2012/10/Obama_campaign_blasts_Ohio_voting_case_appeal.html

[apples]

Ohio to Appeal Voting Case to Supreme Court

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said Tuesday he would ask the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that requires the state to hold early voting on the last three days before the election.

That decision, by a federal appeals court Friday, had handed the Obama campaign a victory as the judges rejected Ohio’s argument that officials needed those final three days to prepare for Election Day.

The appeals court found that Ohio’s attempt to cut off early voting violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause, since it was letting military service members, but not others, vote on those days. But Mr. Husted said the ruling made little sense, since the court also allowed each county to decide whether to have early voting at all during that period.

“That means that one county may close down voting for the final weekend while a neighboring county may remain open,” Mr. Husted said in a statement. “How any court could consider this a remedy to an equal protection problem is stunning.”

He also called it “an unprecedented intrusion by the federal courts into how states run elections.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/10/09/ohio-to-appeal-voting-case-to-supreme-court/