At least for now, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s devious plot to steal the election for Mitt Romney has been derailed. A district judge (appointed by Clinton and on senior status) has ruled that Ohioans can vote on the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday before Election Day, despite the persistent efforts of Husted and the Ohio GOP to eliminate early voting.
In 2004, the GOP was able to suppress the Democratic vote in the Buckeye state by ensuring that Democratic strongholds had insufficient voting machines and, thus, many hours-long lines. In some places, people were still voting at midnight, although there was obviously substantial drop off from people who couldn’t or wouldn’t spend that much time waiting to vote.
In 2008, early voting prevented those kinds of lines and the Democrats got the votes they deserved. The Republicans have been doing everything they can think of to restore the situation they enjoyed in 2004. They even attempted to allow early voting in Republicans counties and deny it in Democratic ones. When the Obama administration sued, they claimed that the administration was trying to suppress the military vote. In fact, it was the Republicans who were trying to let the military vote on days and places where civilians would not be allowed to vote. Obama sued to allow everyone to vote, not to take away the vote from the military. And, for now, he won.
[Jon] Husted spokesman Matt McClellan and a representative of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said the state’s chief elections officials was reviewing the decision to determine whether to comply or proceed with further appeals.
Perhaps they will appeal.
