Dragged kicking and screaming by two federal court decisions (and a rejection from SCOTUS) to reinstate rull early voting for all voters, Ohio GOP Secretary of State John Husted is playing around with the hours of early voting centers to make it more difficult to find out when voting is possible.
'Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted swiftly limited early voting hours on those crucial three days to 8 am–2 pm on Saturday, November 3; 1–5 pm on Sunday, November 4; and 8 am–2 pm on Monday, November 5. That means Ohio voters will have a total of only sixteen hours to cast a ballot during those three days. And before the weekend before the election, Ohio voters will still not be able to cast a ballot in-person on nights or weekends.'
I'm sure that folks who are trying to encourage and enable early voting will be letting folks know about those mish-mosh hours. I hope they are also monitoring to ensure that there are enough (working) polling machines to meet the crowds that are expected to turn out.
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Another Loss for Voter Suppression: Pre-Election Early Voting Upheld in Ohio | The Nation
The bad news? Ohio's Secretary of State swiftly limited early voting hours.
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Classy as always.
I was listening to a Best of the Left podcast from Sept this morning (I am a few weeks behind, d'oh!) — they were talking about Ohio and how the counties extended voting for white neighborhoods and shut them down for black neighborhoods.
In a bit more detail, +Derrick Mims — I believe the story is that county election boards are made up of 3D, 3R, with the Secty of State casting any tiebreakers. In largely white and/or R counties, both R and D members would vote to extend voting. In largely minority and/or D counties, the D members would vote yes, the R members no, and the R Secty of State would vote no.
This created such a public stink (once spotted) that the Secty of State was forced to override the whole process to set consistent rules state-wide — which then led to reduced early voting, and federal law suits.
See, that's what I get for listening to my news a month late.
I love that Podcast, though.
Previously entries:
https://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2012/08/10/early-voting-for-me-but-not-for-thee.html
https://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2012/08/16/a-level-if-low-playing-field-in-ohio.html