Doug Mataconis put up a post yesterday clarifying the situation in Ohio. It adds a bit to the puzzle.
The truly odd thing about this is that this is a change in Ohio law. After the 2004 election and the confusion and chaos that resulted throughout the Buckeye State due to very high turnout, the state passed an early voting law that permitted all Ohio voters to vote early right up until the day before Election Day. According to the Obama campaign, as many as 30% of the nearly 6 million people who voted in the 2008 Presidential election voted early under this law. It’s not clear why the law needed to be changed at all, but the reason for the discrepancy seems to be very odd:
The Republican-controlled legislature enacted two laws last year with provisions to move the deadline to the Friday before the election for all voters, then repealed one measure in May to halt a statewide referendum sought by Democrats, the Obama campaign alleged.
“Whether caused by legislative error or partisan motivation, the result of this legislative process is arbitrary and inequitable treatment of similarly situated Ohio voters with respect to in-person early voting,” according to the complaint.
All Ohio voters could vote early up until the day before Election Day. That was changed by the Republican legislature. It is not clear why the law needed to be changed at all. It would be interesting to see if polls indicate that last minute voters tend to vote Democratic.
Slate’s David Weigel has a blog on this today. http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/04/no_the_obama_campaign_isn_t_trying_to_take_the_vote_away_from_soldiers.html
When we lived in San Antonio, Texas allowed early voting for everyone. Given the nature of my job at the time, this made it possible for me to vote. The lines were short and fast as opposed to an hour or more on voting day. If I had sudden requirement for a trip on voting day, my ballot was already cast. The staff at the polling places were very professional and pleasant and not harried.
I, for one, do not understand why polling is not a several day “window” for all voters. Many of us are pretty mobile these days and cannot always predict or schedule to be home on voting days.
As far as Ohio goes, writing legislation that discriminates in favor of a group is every bit as wrong as legislation against a group..As I recall our founding documents, they tend to refer to “all men” not “most men” or “soldier men”. Sorry ladies, the founders did not seem to much care about women voting, holding property, or other duties and privileges of citizenship.
When I was enlisted, it was very easy to get time off to go vote. As an officer, it was still pretty easy, but I had to time it better. With a month to vote ahead of time, it would have been a breeze.
Steve
The obvious solution seems to be to allow everyone to vote early until Monday before the election. The veterans get their 3 days and so does everybody else. The Dems could have picked a better time to file suit. The bad PR is easily predictable.
Maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the stick, but—some OH controversy is over what happens to your vote when the government worker makes a mistake. In this case, 3 urban precincts might be at the same site, and the precinct worker gives you a provisional ballot for the wrong one (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-ohio-and-elsewhere-battles-over-state-voting-laws-head-to-court/2012/08/05/a56b8ad6-dc19-11e1-8e43-4a3c4375504a_story.html?hpid=z1). This appears to me to be an example of a problem more likely to occur in an urban precinct than a rural one, and disenfranchisement of urban voters then is more likely. Is the importance of early voting more important for urban voters, where precinct lines are likely to be longer? It could be inadvertent, or maybe I’m missing some examples where OH messes up voting in primarily Republican areas.
It’s completely crazy that the idiosyncrasies of local votes have national implications. If we weren’t so polarized, we could discuss national election standards.
It seems pretty clear to me that the intent of the suit was not to restrict early voting of military personnel, but rather to restore the previous status quo where everyone had access to early voting.
Which seems more likely – that Romney’s guys misunderstood the point of the lawsuit and was making the “Obama hurts the military” argument in good faith, or that they understood the reason for the suit, but spun it to make the Democrats look bad?
Yeah, everyone spins things to make the other guy look bad.
That doesn’t make it the right thing to do.