The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a request from Ohio Democrats that sought to restore the state’s “Golden Week” for early voting.
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A federal appeals court has blocked rules requiring precise completion of thousands of absentee ballots in swing state OH, but upheld other challenged election-law changes as legal and not unduly burdensome.
“This much is perfectly clear: Ohio is a place where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat”, said Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. They’re appealing a ruling in favor of the 2014 Republican-backed law that cut out Golden Week permanently and shortened the early voting period from 35 days to 28 or 29 days.
The Supreme Court’s brief order did not note any dissenting votes on the short-handed eight-member court, evenly divided between liberal and conservative justices.
The ruling September 13 means eligible voters in the state will not be allowed to register and cast ballots on the same day when Ohio’s absentee voting period for the presidential election begins next month. OH often is a pivotal state in US presidential elections.
“Even without Golden Week, Ohio’s registration and voting processes afford abundant opportunity for all Ohio voters, of whatever racial or ethnic background, to register and exercise their right to vote”, wrote U.S. Circuit Judge David McKeague.
“We agree with the district court that OH has made no such justification for mandating technical precision in the address and birth date fields of the absentee-ballot identification envelope”, the majority ruled.
But the panel reversed the lower court in upholding provisions restricting the assistance that poll workers can offer voters and reducing the number of days absentee voters have to remedy identification-envelope errors. “Voting in elections is one of our country’s most sacred freedoms and we should do everything in our power to make it easier, not more hard”. Over the last two presidential elections alone, tens of thousands of Ohioans have counted on the Golden Week to register to vote and cast their ballots. While the court can’t predict how African-Americans will turn out in future elections, he said, “It is reasonable to conclude from this evidence that their right to vote will be modestly burdened” by the law.
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“That means that all of the Supreme Court justices feel Ohio’s system of voting is very generous”. The split illustrated how closely divided the court is on voting rights.
