Court rules Ohio can cut ‘Golden Week’ early voting

“This case presents yet another appeal (there are several pending in the Sixth Circuit alone) asking the federal courts to become entangled, as overseers and micromanagers, in the minutiae of state election processes”, reads the majority opinion written by Judge David McKeague. Even without the week, OH already allows early, in-person voting for 29 days before the election, a number that the court called “quite generous”. “Simply stating that Ohio’s early voting system is ‘one of the more generous in the nation” provides little helpful information. He says the issue has been dragged through the courts and produced the finding that Ohio’s laws are fair. “We hope municipalities across the state will quickly move forward in offering expanded in-person absentee voting hours to ensure all Wisconsinites are able to exercise their right to vote”. Judges Frank Easterbrook and Michael Kanne were appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

The court could take further action on the case between now and the November 8th election that would change the voting rules, however.

Democrats had challenged a series of Republican-backed voting changes they claimed disproportionately burdened black voters and those who lean Democratic.

A federal district court ordered the state in May to restore the early voting days eliminated over the last few years by the Republican-controlled legislature, calling the cuts “unconstitutional” and “unenforceable”.

A resident walks to a polling location during the presidential primary in OH earlier this year.

Proponents said the change was needed to give county election officials time to verify voters’ eligibility before they cast ballots and to reduce potential voter fraud. Stranch also took issue with the majority’s reliance on comparisons between the early in-person voting systems of OH and other states. Schimel could have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved, but his spokesman tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://bit.ly/2bCEOwL ) Schimel decided not to do that.

Daniel P. Tokaji, an expert on election law at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said he expected a petition to have the case heard by the full court. Such policies include the elimination of a week of early voting in which residents could also register to vote.

“Federal judicial remedies, of course, are necessary where a state law impermissibly infringes the fundamental right to vote. We conclude that it does not”. The judge who dissented, Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch, was appointed by President Barack Obama. I also have anxious, and worry, that cases like this make bad law when there are more serious voting cutbacks, although this opinion is written in such a way that major damage appears to have been avoided. “The scrutiny applied by the district court was proper and in accord with governing precedent”.