Ohio: Husted rescinds order against early-voting hours | Dayton Daily News

Secretary of State Jon Husted on Friday rescinded his directive forbidding Ohio counties to set their own voting hours for the weekend before the Nov. 6 election, pending a legal appeal. But Husted asked a federal court to issue a legal stay that would effectively accomplish the same thing. His court motion was the fourth development in eight days regarding “final-weekend” voting. *U.S. District Judge Peter Economus in Columbus ruled Aug. 31 that Ohio laws prohibiting final-weekend voting were unconstitutional, adding that he “anticipated” Husted would set a “specific, consistent schedule on those three days.” *Husted and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine appealed the ruling, and Husted issued a directive prohibiting counties from setting their own hours while the appeal was pending, saying he was trying to prevent more confusing changes. *When the Obama campaign objected to that directive, Economus quickly set a hearing for next Thursday, demanding that Husted attend in person.

Ohio: Secretary of State rescinds order blocking early voting hours on three days leading to election day | cleveland.com

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted on Friday rescinded a directive that blocked boards of election from setting in-person early voting hours over the final three days leading up to Election Day. The Republican secretary’s decision was in response to a federal judge who this week ordered Husted to appear in his court on Sept. 13 because the directive appears to not adhere to a recent U.S. District Court ruling. On Aug. 30, Judge Peter C. Economus, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, ruled that a new state law – which would have shut down early voting after 6 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 2, until the polls opened on Tuesday, Nov. 6 – is unconstitutional. His written opinion added: “This court anticipates that defendant Secretary of State will direct all Ohio elections boards to maintain a specific, consistent schedule on those three days.”

Voting Blogs: Non-Retrogression, Equal Protection, and Ohio’s Early Voting Case | Election Law @ Moritz

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has set an expedited briefingschedule in the Obama campaign’s case over early voting in Ohio. The state’s brief is due this coming Monday (9/10), with Obama’s response a week later (9/17), and the state’s reply (if any) the Friday of that same week (9/21). As this appellate process gets underway, I wish to make one observation about an innovative and intriguing aspect of the federal district court’s unexpected order, issued last Friday. (In separate development, the district court has ordered Ohio’s Secretary of State Jon Husted to appear at a hearing next Thursday (9/20) to explain his response to the court’s Friday order.) The district court ruled that the state must restore for Ohio’s entire electorate the three days of early voting immediately preceding the traditional Election Day. These three days existed in 2008 and more recently, until taken away in 2011 by a convoluted series of legislative enactments (combined with some implementing directives from the Secretary of State). The district court did not base its ruling on the ground that these three days of early voting are constitutionally compelled. Rather, the court relied on the ground that the state had left open the possibility that these three days of early voting would be available only to military voters this year, and that the state did not have an adequate justification for differentiating among military and non-military voters in this way. (For further details on the court’s ruling, see my colleague Steve Huefner’s insightful analysis from the day of the district court decision.)

Ohio: Secretary of State Jon Husted must appear in federal court to explain delay in restoring early voting | cleveland.com

A federal judge ordered Secretary of State Jon Husted on Wednesday to personally appear next week at a hearing about his reluctance to restore early voting the weekend before the Nov. 6 election. Judge Peter Economus, whose ruling Husted has resisted, scheduled the hearing on Sept. 13 in the U.S. District Court in Columbus. Economus set the hearing after President Barack Obama’s re-election team filed a motion Wednesday requesting the court to enforce its order to restore in-person early voting during the final three days before the presidential election. In-person early voting over the final weekend before the Nov. 6 election has emerged as a signature issue for Democrats who have repeatedly bashed Republicans’ attempts to limit early voting opportunities. Husted, a Republican, once again took fire from Democrats with a directive he issued on Tuesday.

Ohio: Obama Camp Fights Ohio’s Move To Ignore Early Voting Ruling | TPM

The Obama campaign filed a motion on Wednesday asking a federal court to force the state of Ohio to obey its decision to restore early voting in the three days before the November election. The motion was filed in response to an announcement from Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who said Tuesday that he wouldn’t set early voting hours until an appeals court ruled on a decision made by U.S. District Judge Peter Economus last week. Economos found that the “public interest is served by restoring in-person early voting to all Ohio voters.”

Ohio: Choose Your Uncertainty: Ohio SoS Goes Slow on Early Voting Pending Appeal | Election Academy

Last Friday, a federal court judge in Ohio issued an order in Obama for America v. Husted directing the State of Ohio to restore early voting for all Ohio voters on the three days before Election Day 2012. On Tuesday. Secretary of State Jon Husted issued a directive in response to the order. The directive notes that the order is being appealed and states, in pertinent part:

Announcing new hours before the court case reaches final resolution will only serve to confuse voters and conflict with the standard of uniformity sought in Directive 2012-35 [concerning early voting]. Therefore, there is no valid reason for my office or the county boards of elections to set hours for in-person absentee voting the last three days before the election at this time. If the appellate courts ultimately reverse the trial court’s decision, in-person absentee voting for non-UOCAVA voters will end the Friday before the election. If however, the appellate courts uphold the trial court’s decision, I will be required to issue a consistent uniform schedule for statewide in-person voting hours for the last three days before the election. I am confident there will be sufficient time after the conclusion of the appeal process to set uniform hours across the state.

Ohio: Husted bars local election officials from setting early voting hours pending appeals court decision | cleveland.com

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted on Tuesday prohibited county boards of elections — for the time being — from setting hours to open their doors for early voting the weekend before the presidential election. Although a federal judge last week restored in-person early voting during the last three days before the Nov. 6 election, Husted said it would be inappropriate to set voting hours for those days because the judge’s ruling has been appealed. “The constitutionality of the statute setting in-person absentee voting hours is still subject to court review and it would further confuse voters to set hours now that the court may change later,” Husted said in a directive issued Tuesday to all 88 county boards of elections.

Ohio: Early Voting Battle Flares After Racial Comment by G.O.P. Official | NYTimes.com

A battle over early voting hours in Ohio is flaring again after a top adviser to Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, this week made remarks that Democrats cast as racist, and the Republican secretary of state suspended two local election officials who voted to extend balloting hours in one county. Anger over rules on early voting in this presidential battleground state appeared as if it might ease last week when, under pressure from voters’ rights groups, the secretary of state announced that all Ohio counties would follow a uniform policy over the five-week early voting period that begins Oct 2. But tensions have done anything but cool. The new policy excluded weekends, and Democrats have accused the secretary of state, Jon Husted, of trying to scale back voting opportunities in urban areas that had longer voting hours during the last presidential election, when Barack Obama won the state.

Ohio: Election Official Stands By Jab At Black Turnout “Machine” | BuzzFeed

A top Ohio Republican Sunday stood by his comment that the state’s voting procedures shouldn’t be “contort[ed] to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine.” In an interview with BuzzFeed, Franklin County GOP Chairman Doug Preisse, a close ally of Governor John Kasich, said his comment — which provoked Democratic outrage — was simply straight talk. Democrats “are trying to say that I had somehow consciously constrained hours for that purpose,” Preisse said. “No, I am saying the opposite, that I am asking the question, and I am indeed questioning how far this process of democratic, small ‘d’, democratic voting process should be contorted to favor a political operation. I don’t think we should go overboard in doing that.” Preisse’s comment to today’s Columbus Dispatch were taken as a smoking gun by Democrats and progressives, who said — as one liberal Ohio blogger wrote — that Preisse had acknowledged an effort to “suppress black voters.” Preisse scoffed at the criticism, telling BuzzFeed of a disputed voting plan put forth by Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, “I believe it should be easy to vote, and I believe that under this plan it is.

Ohio: Protesters defend voting rights and embattled Ohio election officials | Examiner.com

“Our vote is our passport to democracy and freedom,” said Charles Holmes, a retired pastor from the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dayton, Ohio. He was speaking this morning to a group of 180 protesters in front of the offices of Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted in downtown Columbus. “In Ohio and all across the nation, there is an effort to take away your vote, by tricks like photo ID and reducing the number of early voting hours,” Reverend Holmes said. “This is reprehensible.” As the November election nears, the controversy over voting rights and voter suppression has been heating up in Ohio and other key battleground states. On Friday, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted suspended two Democrats on the Montgomery County Board of Elections for refusing to back down on a proposal to allow weekend early voting. Husted had issued a directive on Wednesday that all 88 Ohio counties would allow some weekday evening early voting hours, but no early voting on weekends. “Secretary Husted is wrong to punish Dennis Lieberman and Tom Ritchie for voting to extend weekend voting hours,” Reverend Holmes said. “We owe these two men the debt of our gratitude for standing up for all voters, not just some. Jon Husted is supposed to be an impartial referee. But he’s working in partisan ways to reduce the total vote count, just as his mentor, Ken Blackwell, did in 2004.”

Voting Blogs: GOP Admits Early Voting Cutbacks Are Racially Motivated | The Nation

Earlier this month I reported how Ohio Republicans were limiting early voting hours in Democratic counties, while expanding them on nights and weekends in Republican counties. In response to the public outcry, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who intervened in favor of limiting early voting hours in Democratic counties, issued a statewide directive mandating uniform early voting hours in all eighty-eight Ohio counties. Husted kept early voting hours from 8 am to 5 pm on weekdays from October 2 to 19 and broadened hours from 8 am to 7 pm from October 22 to November 2. But he refused to expand early voting hours beyond 7 pm during the week, on weekends or three days prior to the election (which is being challenged in court by the Obama campaign)—when it is most convenient for many working Ohioans to vote. Rather than expanding early voting hours across the state, Husted limited them for everybody. Voter suppression for all!

Editorials: Military voters as political pawns | UTSanDiego.com

It’s the election season, and the battle for the presidency and control of Congress is being fought not just through voter registration drives, endless campaign ads, and stadium rallies, but also in courts across America. Litigation over election rules has become increasingly commonplace since the disputed 2000 election in Florida, which led to the United States Supreme Court choosing George W. Bush over Al Gore. And as in 2000, the question of military voters and military ballots is back in the media and legal spotlight, with Republicans unfairly accusing Democrats of being anti-military. A federal district court in Ohio will soon decide the Obama campaign’s challenge to an unusual Ohio law. The law allows military voters and overseas voters, but no other voters, the right to cast an in-person ballot in the three days before Election Day. Democrats argue that this law is unconstitutional because it “requires election officials to turn most Ohio voters, including veterans, firefighters, police officers, nurses, small business owners and countless other citizens, away from open voting locations, while admitting military and nonmilitary overseas voters and their families who are physically present in Ohio and able to vote in person.”

Ohio: Election Official Says Early Voting Process Should Not Accommodate Black Voters | Huffington Post

An Ohio GOP election official who voted against the weekend voting rules that enabled thousands to cast ballots in the 2008 election said Sunday that he did not think that the state’s early voting procedures should accommodate African-Americans. “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine,” Doug Priesse said in an email to the Columbus Dispatch Sunday. “Let’s be fair and reasonable.”

Ohio: Voting hours order doesn’t end debate | Cincinnati.com

Dissatisfied that a statewide plan for early absentee voting includes no weekend hours, Democrats, labor leaders and voting rights groups on Thursday pressed for expansion of that schedule – and warned that the issue may ultimately be resolved in court. The day after Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted ordered all 88 county boards of elections to stay open for limited extra evening hours in October, about 150 people rallied outside the Hamilton County Board of Elections and later jammed a meeting room to demand even more hours, particularly on weekends. “What he did was equally disenfranchise voters,” senior citizen Patricia Youngblood said, drawing murmurs of approval from the impassioned, frustrated crowd.

Ohio: Secretary of State Suspends Democrats From Montgomery County Board | BuzzFeed

The top Ohio elections official, a Republican, has suspended two Democratic elections board members as the state’s regular, bitter battles over voting procedures intensify. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, after setting a uniform standard for early voting hours across the state on Wednesday, is facing a revolt from some Democratic elections board members, who had voted against complying with the new rule. In response to the move by two Montgomery County Democrats, Husted suspended them this afternoon, writing to Thomas Ritchie Sr. and Dennis Lieberman, “[Y]ou are hereby suspended from acting in any official capacity as a member of the montgomery County Board of Elections.” He also set a hearing for Monday on the two men’s permanent removal from the board.On Wednesday, Husted had issued a directive that his office says stopped county boards of elections from allowing weekend early voting hours within their counties, but this morning the Democratic members of the Montgomery County Board of Elections ignored the directive, claiming the directive only set a minimum, and voted to allow it.

Editorials: Analyzing a “Voting Wars” Trifecta | Election Law @ Moritz

Yesterday was a big day in what Rick Hasen has aptly called The Voting Wars. There were three major developments. First, in the wake of increasingly vociferous criticism from Democrats and civil rights organizations (and the New York Times editorial page), Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State, Jon Husted, issued a directive requiring all 88 counties in the state to offer in-person early voting for the same specified days and hours, thereby prohibiting any county from offering fewer or more times when in-person early voting would be available. Second, a federal trial court in Ohio heard the Obama campaign’s challenge to the State’s early voting regime insofar as it permits military voters, but not others, to cast in-person ballots on the Monday immediately before Election Day. The Obama campaign’s lawsuit had assumed that in-person early voting would also be available for military voters, but not others, during the weekend immediately preceding Election Day; but Husted’s new directive appears to eliminate that possibility.

Ohio: Early voting dispute goes to federal court | Lancaster Eagle Gazette

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 from the early-voting period for everyone, except members of the armed forces and Ohioans living overseas. The dispute reached federal court Wednesday, thanks to what the Obama campaign describes as its first lawsuit anywhere in the nation for the 2012 election. U.S. District Judge Peter Economus in Columbus listened to arguments from both sides but issued no decision. He gave no time frame for a decision, saying only that he would take the matter under advisement. Put simply, both political parties see looser rules for early voting as an advantage for Obama because they might encourage minorities, young people and other harder-to-reach voters to cast a ballot. Military votes are thought to lean Republican.

Ohio: Election boards required to standardize early voting hours | The Columbus Dispatch

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: 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: 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.

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

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.

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: 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: Obama Campaign Called Ohio Decision On Early Military Voting “Appropriate” In Lawsuit | Buzzfeed

The Obama campaign said in a lawsuit drawing attention this weekend that the Ohio Secretary of State “appropriately” allowed a longer time period for early, in-person voting among members of the military and their families — a line that contradicts suggestions that the suit opposes early voting for servicemembers. The lawsuit — filed more than two weeks ago by the Obama campaign, Democratic National Committee and Ohio Democratic Party — has become a target of the Romney campaign, with Spokesman Ryan Williams telling BuzzFeed that Obama’s campaign “sued Ohio to object to the three extra days the state is giving military voters and their families during Ohio’s in-person early voting period.” Fox News went further, reporting that the lawsuit aims to “block a new state law allowing men and women in uniform to vote up until the Monday right before an election.” In fact, the lawsuit is addressing what it calls “a confused legislative process” surrounding the passage of three voting laws in a short period in Ohio. The effect of those laws is: (1) in-person early voting in Ohio ends for most voters on the Friday before the election and (2) two conflicting deadlines regarding the end of in-person early voting for those voting under the auspices of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voter Act, which includes servicemembers and their families.

Ohio: Overhaul of Ohio election laws still stalled – parties agree on need for reform, but not much else | Cincinnati.com

In the 2008 election, Ohio had its typical problems, among them a high number of provisional ballots and long lines at some polling locations. So the then-secretary of state set up a series of bipartisan “election summits” on how to fix the problems. Nearly four years later, most of the recommendations haven’t been voted on by the General Assembly, much less put into action. This even though the state’s Association of Election Officials, made up of Democratic and Republican appointees to boards of election across the state, endorsed the recommendations in April 2009, calling them “ripe for review and reform prior to the 2010 election year.” The summit process in 2008 and 2009 was unusual, said Lawrence Norden, a national expert on elections who chaired the summits for New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. He doesn’t know of “another state where there’s been a bipartisan review open to the public” to recommend improvement in election law and administration, he said. “But I don’t know that it ultimately, at least for now, produced the results I had hoped for,” conceded Norden, deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program and an adjunct professor of law at NYU.

Editorials: Husted buys into GOP’s latest phantom vote fraud threat | cleveland.com

Secretary of State Jon Husted says it’s just part of guarding the integrity of Ohio elections, and not partisanship, that is causing him to try to access a federal immigration database to rid Ohio’s voter rolls of noncitizens, who aren’t eligible to vote. Not that Husted is sitting on proof that a flood of foreigners has registered to vote in Ohio. The Republican admits the number, if it exists, will be small. “There are a lot of agendas,” he said in an interview. “I don’t have that agenda,” saying he was one of the most “pro-immigration” politicians around. He said he would proceed carefully on citizenship challenges, case-by-case. But The Denver Post reported last week that Husted is one of at least 11 top Republican state election officials around the country who have joined in an effort to get access to the federal list, known as SAVE, for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement, created to check noncitizens’ eligibility for certain benefits. Its reliability in checking for citizenship status is unclear.

Ohio: Husted asks feds for immigration database for voters’ citizenship verification | cleveland.com

Ohio has requested access to a massive federal immigration database so election officials can verify voters’ citizenship. Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted acknowledged the sensitivity of immigration issues but said the information, which he requested, would be valuable in unique situations when a voter’s citizenship is called into question. The database would not be used on a widespread basis to purge Ohio’s voter rolls of non-citizens, he said. “I feel like I have an obligation to pursue this to make sure we have all the tools necessary to make sure the integrity of the election system is upheld,” Husted said. Husted’s request comes at a volatile time. The hotly contested presidential election has put a spotlight on voting rights issues across the country, and there already have been accusations in Ohio of voter suppression tactics by GOP lawmakers aimed at poor and minority voters. Just this week, President Barack Obama’s re-election team sued Husted to allow in-person voting the three days before Election Day. Voting rights advocates cautioned Husted to use the information carefully.

Ohio: Obama campaign sues Husted over early voting issue | Toledo Blade

President Obama’s campaign sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted today to keep him from enforcing a law closing the doors to in-person early voting during the three days immediately preceding the Nov. 6 election. Lawmakers recently undid a far-reaching, Republican-backed election reform law when faced with a Democratic-led effort to repeal it at the polls, but they did not repeal a separate subsequently passed law that duplicated one provision of the repealed law. That provision prohibits county board of elections from keeping their doors open on the weekend and Monday before the election to accommodate early voters, a three-day period that has been heavily used in past elections. The campaign joined the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party in filing the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbus. The Republican secretary of state did enforce the three-day early vote prohibition for the March primary election.