Tag Archives: early voting

It matters not whether a county tilts Democratic or Republican, all Ohio voters will have the same opportunity to show up and cast an early ballot under a new directive Secretary of State Jon Husted issued today. Husted’s move came in response to a growing controversy over disparities in early voting hours across Ohio. In big urban counties, voters were being confined to normal business hours, but hours were being extended into the evening and Saturdays in several more-Republican counties. “There’s no question that the principle of fairness is being upheld today in Ohio, because all voters are being treated equally,” he said at a hastily called press conference this afternoon. Under his directive, county boards must be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the first three weeks, and from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the last two weeks before the Nov. 6 election. No board will have Saturday hours. “For the first time in Ohio history all Ohioans will vote by the same standard,” Husted said. “I am leveling the playing field on voting days and hours during the absentee voting period in each of the 88 counties – rural, urban and suburban.” Early voting in the 2008 presidential election had a “patchwork of hours and days of operation,” he said.

Ohio: Campaigns spar over Ohio election law | The Crescent News

It doesn’t take much to start a political spat in Ohio, where jockeying for every presidential vote is practically blood sport. The latest pits President Barack Obama’s campaign against groups representing military voters, an uncomfortable place for the commander in chief. At issue is the legality of an Ohio law cutting three days out of the early-voting period for everyone except members of the armed forces and Ohio citizens living overseas. The dispute reaches court today, thanks to what the Obama campaign describes as its first lawsuit anywhere in the nation for the 2012 election. Put simply, looser rules for early voting are seen by both political parties as an advantage for Obama because they may encourage minorities, young people and other harder-to-reach voters to cast a ballot. Military votes are thought to lean Republican.

Ohio: Democrats, Republicans fight in federal court over voting rights | The Columbus Dispatch

If active military members are allowed to vote on the three days prior to Election Day, then everyone should have that right, Democrats argued in federal court this morning. But those representing some military groups and two of the state’s top Republican officials say the law already treats military voters differently, and having different cut-off dates for in-person early voting is justifiable. William Consovoy, an attorney representing Secretary of State Jon Husted, noted, for example, that military members get their absentee ballots earlier than the rest of Ohioans. “There is an easily rational basis for providing special accommodations for the military,” Consovoy said. “And that is all that is required.” Democratic lawyers, including those from the Obama campaign, slogged it out for nearly 90 minutes with Republican counsel over whether it’s constitutional for the state to allow military voters to cast in-person ballots on the Saturday through Monday before Election Day, when no one else can do so. In recent elections, all Ohioans could vote early on those three days, and Democrats estimate 93,000 cast in an in-person ballot on those days in the 2008 presidential election.

Ohio: Limit on early voting in Ohio sparks campaign dispute, with military voters at center | The Washington Post

It doesn’t take much to start a political spat in Ohio, where jockeying for every presidential vote is practically blood sport. The latest pits President Barack Obama’s campaign against groups representing military voters, an uncomfortable place for the commander in chief. At issue is the legality of an Ohio law cutting three days out of the early-voting period for everyone except members of the armed forces and Ohio citizens living overseas. The dispute reaches court Wednesday, thanks to what the Obama campaign describes as its first lawsuit anywhere in the nation for the 2012 election. Put simply, looser rules for early voting are seen by both political parties as an advantage for Obama because they may encourage minorities, young people and other harder-to-reach voters to cast a ballot. Military votes are thought to lean Republican.

Tennessee: Shelby County election official responds to state’s questions about voting problems | The Commercial Appeal

The County Commission’s failure to develop its redistricting plan, the loss of critical local precinct-change data by the state, the massive complexities of redistricting overall, and a new staff without redistricting experience contributed to unprecedented local problems in the Aug. 2 elections, Shelby County’s chief election official reported Wednesday night. The County Commission’s redistricting plan was legally due last Dec. 31, but was never finalized. The Shelby Election Commission decided on June 14 that it “must proceed at a rapid pace to implement the redistricting at all levels” based on no county commission plan, but the next day a court ruling approved a plan — and that ruling was promptly appealed. That was only a month before the start of early voting. “I believed we could not act until the county commission enacted a redistricting plan,” Shelby Elections Administrator Richard Holden wrote. “Had they acted in compliance with state law, we would have implemented the plan we developed after the March election certification and the results would have been dramatically different.”

Florida: Once Again Florida at Center of Debate Over Voting Rules | News21

Florida’s hanging chads and butterfly ballots in 2000 ignited the divisive battle that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court denying an election recount, effectively declaring that George W. Bush won the presidential election by 537 votes. Another potentially close election is ahead, and the nation’s largest swing state is again at the center of a partisan debate over voting rules — this time, a fight about the removal of non-citizens from Florida’s voter roll and how the state oversees groups who register voters. It is set against a national backdrop of a bitter fight between Democrats who say voting rights of students and minorities are endangered and Republicans who say that voter fraud is widespread enough to sway an election. While many other states have considered laws that would require that people show a photo ID before they can vote, Florida has taken a different tack. Republicans there wrote a law in 2011 that they said would eliminate voter registration fraud by more closely controlling third-party registration, early voting hours and voter address updates. “With the old law, some things weren’t illegal or designated as fraud,” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican and funeral home owner who sponsored the bill.

Ohio: Early Voting time a partisan battle | Cincinnati.com

Extended hours on nights and weekends that made it easier for nearly 9,000 voters to cast early ballots in the 2008 presidential race at the Hamilton County Board of Elections may not be repeated this year because of Republican opposition. Across Ohio, that is part of a developing pattern in which extra pre-election voting hours may be denied to voters in large urban counties – most of which traditionally vote Democratic – even as extended hours will be available in some smaller counties with a strong Republican slant. The issue has emerged amid continuing questions over provisional ballots – cast when there are questions over a voter’s registration, and the source of controversy in past elections – and the Ohio legislature’s failure over the past four years to amend the state’s voting laws to address problems.

Ohio: Husted doesn’t rule out limiting early voting throughout Ohio | cleveland.com

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said he is considering requiring the same set of early voting hours across the state in the run-up to the November election. “There’s nothing forthcoming and nothing in the near term as far as a directive on this matter,” Husted said in an interview, “but I will be listening to local boards of elections’ concerns on this issue.” Husted, a Republican who called himself “a champion for doing things uniformly,” said he would not rule out eventually issuing a directive to address the growing controversy over the hodge-podge of voting hours in each county across Ohio. He has time to think about it. Early voting begins Oct. 2. Democrats and watchdog groups are concerned the mismatched sets of rules on voting hours favor Republican candidates over Democrats.

Editorials: Overt Discrimination in Ohio | NYTimes.com

If you live in Butler or Warren counties in the Republican-leaning suburbs of Cincinnati, you can vote for president beginning in October by going to a polling place in the evening or on weekends. Republican officials in those counties want to make it convenient for their residents to vote early and avoid long lines on Election Day. But, if you live in Cincinnati, you’re out of luck. Republicans on the county election board are planning to end early voting in the city promptly at 5 p.m., and ban it completely on weekends, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. The convenience, in other words, will not be extended to the city’s working people. The sleazy politics behind the disparity is obvious. Hamilton County, which contains Cincinnati, is largely Democratic and voted solidly for Barack Obama in 2008. So did the other urban areas of Cleveland, Columbus and Akron, where Republicans, with the assistance of the Ohio secretary of state, Jon Husted, have already eliminated the extended hours for early voting.

National: Early Voting in 2012: What to Expect | Huffington Post

August 14, 2012

Early voting in recent American elections has skyrocketed, reaching a record thirty percent of all votes cast in the 2008 presidential election, remarkably higher than the twenty percent cast in 2004. All indications are the record will be shattered again in 2012, with somewhere around thirty-five of the vote cast prior to Election Day. States vary their early voting options. Some states like Indiana and Texas allow persons to vote early at special polling locations. Some like Oregon and Washington, and some local jurisdictions, run all-mail ballot elections. Some like California and Colorado allow persons to request that they vote by mail in all future elections. Some like Ohio allow persons to request a mail ballot for any reason. Then there are a handful of holdouts like Pennsylvania and Virginia have traditional absentee balloting laws that extend early voting only to those who provide a valid excuse. Complicating definitions is that some states like Florida and North Carolina allow both early voting at special polling locations and no-fault absentee balloting. And where mail balloting is the primary method of early voting, voters can vote in-person at an election administration office. (I recommend seeking up-to-date voting information from state and local election officials.)

Tennessee: Election Commission could take ‘serious’ action in response to Shelby County’s voting problems | The Commercial Appeal

August 14, 2012

The Tennessee Election Commission could take “serious and substantial” action — possibly including ousting members of the Shelby County Election Commission — depending on the outcome of a review of the problems in the Aug. 2 election, a Memphis member of the state board said Monday. A performance audit of those problems by the state comptroller’s office is expected to begin as soon as this week, State Election Commission member Greg Duckett of Memphis said. The audit was requested July 26 by Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett and State Election Coordinator Mark Goins, who both called the problems “unacceptable.” Election analyst Joe Weinberg of Germantown estimates that nearly 3,200 Shelby voters were given incorrect ballots, mostly for the new state legislative districts they were moved into during this year’s redistricting, during the Aug. 2 election, including its early voting period. That number included some voters in areas annexed by Collierville, who were not given ballots that included that city’s referendum on municipal schools. The votes cast in incorrect districts were not counted and voters had no chance under state law to cast correct ballots after they had already voted.

Ohio: Husted may review early-hours voting rule | Toledo Blade

August 13, 2012

Four years ago, more than 60 percent of the voters in Butler and Warren counties backed Republican John McCain. This year both counties, the biggest two in Ohio to go for the GOP presidential candidate, are staying open extra hours on weekdays and Saturdays so their residents can cast early ballots. In 2008, voters in Ohio’s two largest counties, Cuyahoga and Franklin, went for Democrat Barack Obama by 60 percent or more. But elections offices in those two predominantly Democratic counties will be open for early voting only during regular business hours on weekdays and not at all on Saturdays. A similar Republican-Democrat disparity is occurring in several areas across the state as county elections boards decide whether to add hours during Ohio’s early voting period, which begins Oct. 2. “This is patently political,” said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. “The Republicans know they can’t win this election playing the right way.” “Jim Crow has been resurrected in Ohio,” state Sen. Nina Turner (D., Cleveland) said on MSNBC. She said most of Ohio’s African-American voters live in urban counties that don’t have extended hours.

Florida: Election law challenge gets hearing | Miami Herald

August 11, 2012

A lawyer for Gov. Rick Scott’s administration on Friday said Florida won’t stop using two conflicting election laws, depending on the county, even if opponents of the dual system win an administrative law challenge. Two nonpartisan groups and a Democratic state senator contend the state violated rule-making requirements by directing local election officials in 62 counties to follow a new law even though the other five, all covered by the federal Voting Rights Act, have to adhere to an old one. They also argue the dual system violates another state law requiring a uniform election system but acknowledged it’ll probably take further litigation to require that all 67 counties stick with the old law until a federal court in Washington, D.C., decides if the new statute complies with the Voting Rights Act. “This would be the first step,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, after an administrative law hearing. “If we win here, in order to secure uniform elections in Florida we might have to go to another court.”

National: Voter ID lawsuits could delay election results again | CNN.com

Partisan legal showdowns in battleground states over a spate of new voting laws could turn the 2012 elections into a repeat of the 2000 presidential vote recount saga, political experts say. “Whenever you change the rules by enacting new laws, it triggers a round of litigation. I don’t think we’ll see an end to this anytime soon,” said Dan Tokaji, an Ohio State University law professor. “It could come down to the states counting of absentee ballots. … We could see a replay of the 2000 election, where we don’t have a winner for weeks.” This year’s fight has gotten ugly, especially in the hotly contested states of Florida and Pennsylvania, where there are high-profile fights over new voter identification laws, and Ohio, where President Barack Obama’s and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaigns are locked in a showdown over early voting. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a legal think tank at the New York University School of Law that has criticized the increase in what it sees as prohibitive voting laws, 16 states have passed measures “that have the potential to impact the 2012 election.” The endgame, political experts say, is all about parties crafting laws to help ensure that their side wins.

Ohio: Early Voting Cutbacks Disenfranchise Minority Voters | The Nation

On Election Day 2004, long lines and widespread electoral dysfunctional marred the results of thepresidential election in Ohio, whose electoral votes ended up handing George W. Bush a second term. “The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters,” found a post-election report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee. According to one survey, 174,000 Ohioans, 3 percent of the electorate, left their polling place without voting because of the interminable wait. (Bush won the state by only 118,000 votes). After 2004, Ohio reformed its electoral process by adding thirty-five days of early voting before Election Day, which led to a much smoother voting experience in 2008. The Obama campaign used this extra time to successfully mobilize its supporters, building a massive lead among early voters than John McCain could not overcome on Election Day. In response to the 2008 election results, Ohio Republicans drastically curtailed the early voting period in 2012 from thirty-five to eleven days, with no voting on the Sunday before the election, when African-American churches historically rally their congregants to go to the polls. (Ohio was one of five states to cut back on early voting since 2010.) Voting rights activists subsequently gathered enough signatures to block the new voting restrictions and force a referendum on Election Day. In reaction, Ohio Republicans repealed their own bill in the state legislature, but kept a ban on early voting three days before Election Day (a period when 93,000 Ohioans voted in 2008), adding an exception for active duty members of the military, who tend to lean Republican. (The Obama campaign is now challenging the law in court, seeking to expand early voting for all Ohioans).

Ohio: Fact check: Obama not trying to curb military early voting | USAToday.com

Mitt Romney wrongly suggests the Obama campaign is trying to “undermine” the voting rights of military members through a lawsuit filed in Ohio. The suit seeks to block state legislation that limited early voting times for nonmilitary members; it doesn’t seek to impose restrictions on service members. In an Aug. 4 Facebook posting, Romney called the lawsuit an “outrage,” and said that “if I’m entrusted to be the commander-in-chief, I’ll work to protect the voting rights of our military, not undermine them.” He painted the court filing as an attack on the ability of service men and women to vote: “The brave men and women of our military make tremendous sacrifices to protect and defend our freedoms, and we should do everything we can to protect their fundamental right to vote.” Conservative blogs and opinion pieces have also misrepresented the case, claiming in headlines that President Obama was suing to “restrict military voting.” A fundraising email appeal from a group called Special Operations Speaks — which wants to “remove Barack Obama from the White House” — wrongly says that Obama “deploys army of lawyers to suppress military’s voting rights,” claiming that “Obama needs the American military to not vote, so he has set out to make it as difficult as possible for them to do so.” But that’s not what the Obama lawsuit aims to do at all.

Vermont: Early Voting System Questioned | VPR News

Vermont’s early voting system is designed to boost turnout by making voting more convenient, but questions are being raised about whether it’s too easy for third party groups to misuse the system. Under state law, an individual voter can request an early ballot by calling, writing or emailing their local town clerk within 45 days of an election. They can also go the clerk’s office and vote in person. The law also allows family members, health care providers and any third party person to request a ballot for a specific voter. Gail and Francis Speno live in Brattleboro and are strong supporters of Attorney General Bill Sorrell. Gail says she was surprised to get a call from her Town clerk telling her that a worker from T.J. Donovan’s campaign had put in an early ballot request for the Spenos.”She thought it was unusual that our names would be on there being requested by somebody other than ourselves,” said Speno. “So she called to confirm that did we or did we not want her to mail the ballots and my husband and our were very surprised to see our names on that list and we told her that absolutely under no circumstances should she do that.”

Editorials: Voting Rights Act anniversary celebrated, yet threats rising | Chicago Sun-Times

When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on Aug. 6, 1965, and when President George W. Bush renewed it in 2006, they were trying to prevent barriers to voting. It is tragic that efforts to bar millions of Americans from casting ballots have instead accelerated in recent years. Observers should not underestimate this threat — the very future of our democracy is at stake. Voter suppression efforts have only grown since 2000, when our worries were about the accuracy of voting equipment and Supreme Court bias. Even if the outcome was uncertain, however, most voters were rarely barred from participating in elections. Since then, broad swaths of our population have been targeted for attack. A national legislative campaign coordinated by the American Legislative Exchange Council has passed laws that could inordinately lock students, senior citizens, African-Americans and Hispanics out of their polling places. ALEC’s list of backers reads like a corporate Who’s Who: Koch Enterprises, Peabody Energy, UPS and Exxon Mobil, to name a few. These companies have millions to gain from legislatures favoring wealthy over low-income Americans.

Ohio: Obama Campaign Opens Can of Worms with Ohio Early Voting Lawsuit | NationalJournal.com

When the Obama campaign filed suit to restore three days of early voting in Ohio the weekend before the election, it was supposed to be about increasing access for the thousands of Ohioans expected to take advantage of those final 72 hours to cast their ballots. But the campaign has inadvertently stepped into a minefield, aggravating a group that no commander-in-chief wants to upset — military voters, who fear they could lose access to other special accomodations if Obama and the Democrats prevail. The campaign filed its lawsuit after the Republican-controlled Ohio Legislature eliminated early voting on the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday before the election — except for military personnel. With Ohio’s 18 critical electoral votes at stake, the Obama campaign, in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party, decided to challenge the cutoff. The argument is straightforward on its face: All Ohioans deserve to be able to vote on those three final days. The legal argument is that if active-duty military service members can vote the weekend before Election Day, that right should be extended to all eligible Ohioans under the Constitution’s equal-protection clause. “Whether caused by legislative error or partisan motivation, the result of this legislative process is arbitrary and inequitable treatment of similarly situated Ohio voters with respect to in-person early voting,” the complaint reads.

Ohio: Commission: Only Ohio Distinguishes Military, Civilian Early Voters | BuzzFeed

Despite claims that Democrats’ challenge to an Ohio voting law would undermine military voters’ rights everywhere, no other states offer soldiers’ the special status afforded in Ohio. A report issued Aug. 1 by the nonpartisan Ohio Legislative Service Commission found that no other states have any legal provision that has one early in-person voting deadline for most voters and another for service members, as does the Ohio law being challenged by the Obama campaign and defended by Ohio Republicans and some fraternal military organizations. The report, which has not been released publicly, was obtained by BuzzFeed and has been published here for the first time. The report does note that two states — Indiana and North Carolina — have exceptions in their laws that would allow a very narrow subset of service members to vote early in-person later than other voters. The Obama campaign’s lawsuit in Ohio, in which it is joined by the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party, is about early voting. The specific laws being challenged, however, relate only to in-person early voting and not to traditional mail-in absentee voting, which clearly cuts down on the number of affected active service members. Ohio law, as it is slated to be run in this year’s presidential election, contains one end-point for early in-person voting for most voters (the Friday before the election) and another for those service members and their family voting under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).

Ohio: Romney Camp Still Wouldn’t Say If Veterans, Firefighters, Cops Deserve Early Voting Rights | TPM

Days after falsely accusing the Obama campaign of working to restrict the voting rights of members of the military, the Romney campaign still won’t say whether they believe Ohio cops, firefighters and veterans are worthy of early voting rights. The Romney campaign has failed to respond to multiple inquires from TPM on whether they believe Ohio veterans, cops and firefighters should also be allowed to vote in-person during the three days before an election. Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, told TPM that the VFW doesn’t see the Obama campaign’s suit as a veterans’ issue, but said the VFW wouldn’t object to veterans (and the general public) being allowed to vote in the three days before the election. “The way we read the actual suit was, they wanted to match it to allow the rest of the Ohio citizens to early vote in-person up until the Monday before the election on Tuesday,” Davis said.

Ohio: Military Groups’ Argument About Obama Voting Lawsuit “Extremely Misleading,” Prof Says | BuzzFeed

The Obama campaign’s lawsuit to expand early, in-person voting in Ohio for all voters back to the 2008 presidential election rules hit a snag when fraternal military groups opposed the lawsuit because of the claimed possible future impact a ruling in the case could have on military voting. At that point, the Romney campaign jumped in — and Obama advisor David Axelrod was left defending the campaign’s lawsuit to Chris Wallace on Fox News on Sunday. Captain Sam Wright, a retired members Navy Judge Advocate General Corps who heads the Reserve Officers’ Association’s Service Members Law Center, told BuzzFeed on Sunday, “It MUST be constitutional to make accommodations for military voters that are not made for voters generally.” University of Florida law professor and former Air Force officer Diane Mazur emailed in to disagree. Of the fraternal military groups opposing the Obama campaign’s lawsuit, Mazur tells BuzzFeed, “Their arguments are extremely misleading and also damaging to military professionalism.”

Voting Blogs: Veterans: Romney Lying About Obama Suit’s Effect On Military Voters | TPM

Several veterans slammed Mitt Romney on Monday for opposing and mischaracterizing an Obama campaign lawsuit which would expand early voting rights to veterans, cops, firefighters and all Ohio voters. Romney had claimed — falsely — that the Obama campaign opposed allowing members of the military and their families to vote in-person in the three days before the election. Actually, the Obama campaign wants all people in Ohio — including, for example, veterans, cops and firefighters — to be able to vote during that period. The Romney campaign has not responded to TPM’s multiple requests for comment on whether they believe Ohio firefighters and cops are worthy of early voting rights. “When it comes to Mitt Romney, I feel like he lives in bizarro world,” Iraq veteran and former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) told reporters in a conference call organized by the Center for American Progress on Monday. “He’s suppressing millions of votes across our country in this election, and then he lies and says that President Obama is trying to do the same thing, when it couldn’t be further from the truth.” Murphy said Romney’s opposition to the lawsuit was part of a coordinated effort to suppress the vote.

Voting Blogs: Should We Have VIP Lanes for Military Voters? | Diane Mazur/Election Law Blog