Is the Supreme Court About To Swing Another Presidential Election?
Is the Supreme Court About To Swing Another Presidential Election?
If the court cuts early voting in Ohio, it could be a difference maker in the Buckeye State.
By Richard L. Hasen|Posted Monday, Oct. 15, 2012, at 3:52 PM ET
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to reverse a federal court ruling requiring the state of Ohio to let its counties decide whether to permit early voting during the weekend before Election Day. With the presidential race tight in Ohio, and the presidency potentially turning on the states electoral votes, the courts decision could help determine who will win the White House. While the Obama campaign has a strong policy argument for the extension of early voting to include this final weekend, its constitutional claim is a major stretch.
In 2008, more than 100,000 votersmany poor, women, less educated, and minoritiescast ballots in Ohio during the weekend before Election Day. Voting in Ohio in 2008 was a great success compared with 2004, when long lines, especially in urban areas such as Cleveland, were common and discouraged people from voting. Early voting relieved the stress of Election Day.
But the Ohio legislature, dominated by Republicans, cut back on the last weekend of early voting for 2012. Floridas Republican legislature did the same thing, likely out of a belief that this late period of early voting helps Democrats. Especially helpful to Democrats were Souls to the Polls programs to bus African-American churchgoers from Sunday services to vote. Indeed, Doug Preisse, chair of the Franklin County Republican Party and elections board member who voted against weekend hours for early voting, explained his reasoning in an email to the Columbus Dispatch. I guess I really actually feel we shouldnt contort the voting process to accommodate the urbanread African-Americanvoter-turnout machine.
Lets be fair and reasonable.
When Ohio trimmed the time for early voting, it did so through a complicated set of legislative maneuvers that left only military and other overseas voters with the right to vote on that last weekend. This different treatment provided an opening for the Obama campaign to challenge the cutback: Why should the state take away the right to vote on this last day of voting for everyone except for military and overseas voters? The campaign claimed a violation of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the laws and said the state needed to restore the last weekend of early voting for all voters.
More:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/10/if_the_supreme_court_cuts_early_voting_in_ohio_it_could_swing_the_state.html
librechik
(30,674 posts)to give the justices time to rule. IOW, it won't effect this year's election unless they step out of precedent and intervene. That would never happen (lol)
lumpy
(13,704 posts)GOP dirty tricks have to stop.