A federal court judge on Thursday ordered Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to restore early voting days cut earlier this year by Statehouse Republicans and told state legislators to rewrite state law.
Husted said Thursday afternoon he plans to appeal the judge’s decision because it would allow county boards of election to set unequal early voting hours.
Civil rights groups in May filed suit against the state, challenging statewide early voting hours set by Husted and Republican-backed Senate Bill 238. The legislation eliminated “Golden Week,” a week-long window when Ohioans could both register to vote and cast a ballot at their local boards of election.
The NAACP in June asked U.S. District Court Judge Peter C. Economus to restore Golden Week and add more early voting hours, arguing the restricted schedule burdened working Ohioans who utilized the one-stop-shop of same-day registration and voting and low-income and African-American Ohioans who change their addresses more often than others.
Attorneys for Husted argued Ohio, with the reduced 28 days of early voting, has one of the most expansive voting systems in the country. They also noted the bipartisan Ohio Association of Elections Officials supported eliminating Golden Week because of concerns about cost and being unable to verify registration before a voter casts a ballot.
Economus concluded the Golden Week cuts and Husted’s set hours were unconstitutional and violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in an ethnic minority group.
Click here to read more of this story.
About Marion Online News
