In a win for voting rights, a judge has restored the final three days of early voting in Ohio, after Republicans had tried to scrap them.
President Obama's campaign had sued to overturn a state law, signed by Republican governor John Kasich, that eliminated the last three days of early voting for most Ohioans. Friday, U.S. District Judge Peter Economus granted the Obama campaign's request.
As Rachel Maddow explained recently, excessive wait times at polling places in 2004, especially in urban, Democratic-leaning neighborhoods, led Congress to urge Ohio to fix its voting system. In response, the state instituted reforms that led to a relatively smooth election in 2008, when Obama won the state. Then, after Republicans took control of state government in 2011, they passed a law eliminating the last three days of early voting hours for all but military personnel and those living overseas.
In 2008, nearly 100,000 people used those last three days to vote, Democrats have estimated. Many African-Americans, in particular, customarily vote on the Sunday before the election, after attending church.
Earlier this month, Mitt Romney's campaign falsely accused Obama of seeking to "undermine" military voting rights with the lawsuit. In reality, the Obama camapign was asking that the final three days of voting be restored for everyone, so service-members voting rights would be unaffected.
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finaly we can move on and have a fair election. lets win on our own merits.
So, Will the 2 men that were Fired, Get their JOB back??
Hmm. That's a good question. I'm sure they have some kind of case for taking their boss to court.
Excellent - Now How Many Other States are Involved in All of this BS voter Suppression From the Wrongies -- More Work to be Done !!!!!! It Isn't Over Yet ....................
TOTAL AGREEMENT!!!! Now, on to PA! What is the status of WI? There remain a lot of states to be liberated from their burden of voter suppression.
16 states have passed restrictive voting laws that have the potential to impact the 2012 election (Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia). These states account for 214 electoral votes, or nearly 79 percent of the total needed to win the presidency.
Of these, 15 laws and executive actions are currently in effect in 11 states (Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia).
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/2012_summary_of_voting_law_changes/
Yesterday, it was Texas' voter ID law struck down.
Now, this. It's sad this battle has to be fought. But at least the right side is winning.
Hooray for the judges in Ohio, Texas and Florida!! Now we need Pennsylvania!!
The GOP/ALEC coordinated agenda of suppressing the vote appears to be meeting a solid wall of legal resistance. Governor Kasich's attempt to reduce the three early days of voting has met failure. Why should it ever have been allowed to happen? The GOP has to realize that our democracy is better when every citizen gets their vote to count. Political parties that lose an election or two, generally work that much harder to correct mistakes, recruit better candidates, appeal to new constituencies, or coming up with better policy solutions. So in the long run, both parties are better off when everyone gets to vote. Voting is the mechanism of feedback whereby political leaders get clear feedback on their successes or failures in serving the public. Its absurd for Governor Kasich to have even thought that he should interfere with the democratic process.
Fred WI Atty Gen. JB van Hollen Had asked our State Supreme Court to hurry up and make a ruling on this issue, As of reading about this in Millwaukee Journal there has been no update to report on, Only that the Atty Gen asked for this a few day's after Ryan was picked for VP.
Thank you for the update. Best of success to these efforts, to counter suppression, in all of the affected states.
Oop's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
SUE!!!!!Lawsuit's should be rolling in.Violating ppl's Constitutional rights,because you have the money and the power.Sue!!!Them all,go after the BIG BILLS.They got it,hit them where it hurts.They can donate billions to Romney's campaign,,why not a lawsuit ?