(AP Photo/Erik M. Lunsford)
Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, Jon Husted, is instructing county officials in the battleground state to ignore a federal court ruling allowing for in-person early voting in the final days before election day. Last week a federal judge granted a request from President Obama's campaign as part of a lawsuit targeting a state law cutting off early voting on the Friday before any Tuesday election, except for military personnel and Ohioans living abroad.
In a memo, Secretary Husted said:
"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 (state law). 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 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."
This all comes on the same day Secretary Husted is being sued by a conservative watchdog group alleging that Husted has failed to maintain accurate voter registration lists for his state as required by federal law. Husted's office told the Associated Press that Ohio's voter rolls are in their best shape in years.
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Just as the Supreme Court moved to take up the constitutionality legality issues of the (Un)affordability Care Act early, they will undoubetly be called upon to deal with these issues to guarantee the validity and the smooth opereration of the voting process, still 2 months away.
If anyne in Ohio knows they will be out of the locality of their designated polling place on election day, there is still ample time to obtain an absentee ballot, and mail it in as proscribed by the laws of Ohio State, as supervised by the Secretary of State.
The purpose of early voting is to allow for the relatively small numbers of individuals who might not be availabe to vote on election day...that is being completely corrupted by this constant expanding of early voting...and we as an electorate suffer for it, as it strains the logistics of the voting process personnel that man the polling places, and also makes for an unimformed electorate if they vote early before the campaigns are hardly underway...all for no good reason!
Grandpa can't document any instances of voter fraud, but like Joe McCarthy's Commies in the State Department, and Cheney/Bush's WMD's in Iraq, he's sure they exist.
His anal banal "because I said so" pronouncements are entirely predictable; he knows nothing of policy as it applies to politics, but policy is how the "letter of the law" is accomplished. In the case of early voting, citizens are guaranteed the right to vote, and everyone has heard horror stories of long voting lines and intimidation tactics. By permitting voters to cast ballots early and avoid long lines, we see the power of the voters, which made us great as a nation when we acquired the first government of the people, by the people, and for the people...
Yes, Grandpa, no less than Abraham Lincoln said you were wrong with your silly "defense is the primary reason for a federal government" claim.
Damned Abe was a progressive, no doubt...
Well, in Abe's time the more immediate issue was the "domestic tranquility" instead of ourside threatening forces on our Union.
I wonder how much it cost to buy Jon Husted? He is obviously bought and paid for. How do you look at yourself in the mirror?
I called (through the 24/7 automated service) several weeks ago to have an absentee ballot sent to my home for my mother and myself, at the end of the call I was informed it would take 3 to 5 working days and I would receive my information through the mail. Well, I didn't so I called the number for 'voter' information and was told they would be sent out around the end of the first week of September; ok I've waited and what do I get in the mail but 'absentee ballots' for the former residents of the home (who by the way have not lived here for about a decade). I believe the Republican secretary of state for Ohio and his staff 'are' playing games with Ohio residents so as to discourage you in the process of voting for the November 2012 presidential election! Now I am more determined than ever to make sure that 'if' I have to take my mother in her wheelchair to the 'newly' assigned polling place (oh, by the way, they moved our poll place further away from where we live <we have not moved> our old place was just two blocks away and it was a recreation center. The phone rep stated, "it's probably because the school wanted to change to a more near-by school" (what?). Yes, the Republicans are playing a game of 'chicken' with the Democratic voting areas and its constituents!