Dems seek more voting time for all

Last 3 days before Nov. election are at issue before judge in Ohio

8/16/2012

COLUMBUS -- The fight for the vote in the critical battleground state of Ohio moved on Wednesday from the presidential campaign stump to the inside of a federal courthouse.

President Obama's campaign and fellow Democrats urged a federal judge to prevent the state from enforcing a new prohibition on early in-person voting during the last three days before Election Day.

Caught in the middle are Ohio military personnel and their families, who still have the right to vote in person on those three days. The Obama campaign insisted before Senior Judge Peter C. Economus in U.S. District Court in Columbus that the case is not about denying those people the right to vote on those days, but to restore the same right to all other voters, a right they had in the last presidential election.

"What it seems particularly is being said to you, your honor, is that for the military to be able to vote over this period of time, nobody else can…," said Robert F. Bauer, attorney for the Democratic National Committee. "This is not about who's being kept in. … It's about who's being kept out."

Judge Economus, a President Clinton appointee, then interrupted: "I agree with you on that point. I want to make that clear."

He did not issue an immediate decision.

The battle's genesis traces back to passage of House Bill 194, a massive election-reform law, by Ohio's Republican-controlled General Assembly. One of its many provisions placed restrictions on the practice of early voting, essentially the casting of absentee ballots in person at county boards of elections or their designated sites, before Election Day.

Faced with a Democratic-led voter referendum, Republicans repealed their own law. But they left in place House Bill 224, a separate law that extended early-voting rights to military personnel and their families, but repeated a provision from House Bill 194 that prohibited such voting by anyone else after the close of business on the Friday before Election Day.

Democrats argued that the survival of the three-day ban on early in-person voting was a technical correction to the previously passed Election Day reform law that should not have been allowed to survive the original law's demise.

But attorneys for Secretary of State Jon Husted and Attorney General Mike DeWine, both Republicans, argued that this was not an error, with lawmakers expressing clear intent when they rejected a Democratic amendment to the repeal bill that would have restored those three days of early voting.

"For the 2012 election, Secretary Husted is going so far as to mail an absentee-ballot application to all active registered voters, to everybody who voted in 2008," said Richard N. Coglianese, a principal assistant attorney general.

"Boards of elections are going to be open during their regular business hours for early voting during the weekdays up to the Friday before the election," he said. "We don't have a situation where we are shutting the door, and to say that this is in any way disenfranchising folks is absolutely not supported by the record."

Republican Mitt Romney's campaign has latched onto the Obama camp's contention that denying early voting on some days to the general public is unconstitutional if servicemen and their families are allowed to vote on those days.

"The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee can talk all they want about the remedy they're seeking, but at the end of the day, to achieve their goal, they need to advance an argument and obtain a decision from this court that would find that military voters at home are similarly situated to the civilian population, and the state can't make special accommodations for them," said Kevin Shook, attorney for 15 military organizations that intervened in the case.

Mr. Bauer countered that Ohio has established an unequal system.

"For the first time, open polling places where these early votes can be cast will be open to some, not open to all the voters of Ohio…," he said. "The effect here is an unprecedented one."

But Judge Economus questioned whether the denial of early in-person voting access to nonmilitary voters during these three particular days will mean that these voters won't cast ballots at all.

"There are so many options available," he said. "Ohio is probably one of the most liberal states in the country with regard to voting rights."

Voters may begin to cast absentee ballots by mail and in person beginning on Oct. 2, 35 days before the election. The in-person casting of early ballots must stop three days before Election Day Nov. 6.

A poll released Wednesday by the Democrat-affiliated Public Policy Polling indicated that 61 percent of Ohio voters believe those last three days before the election should be open to early voting for all, not just military members.

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.