Office of the Ohio Secretary of State
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted
Harvard Law School
Michael Morley
A new legal filing made by a GOP-backed coalition of military groups in support of an effort by Ohio Republicans to reduce early voting hours accuses President Obama of "undermin[ing] the rights of military voters for his own partisan advantage.”
As Lean Forward reported Tuesday, the military coalition, described in news reports as non-partisan, was organized by Michael Morley, a Republican lawyer and political operative who’s behind several similar efforts to intervene in voting cases in swing states, always to the benefit of the GOP. Morley has not responded to numerous requests for comment.
The coalition’s new brief (pdf), filed Monday in support of Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, uses rhetoric that appears more suited to a campaign press release than a legal document. “[I]nstead of boldly fighting to defend the constitutional rights of the men and women who serve under his command and risk their lives at his order,” it charges, “the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces is allowing his campaign to undermine the rights of military voters for his own partisan advantage.”
Indeed, that language echoes political attacks made by Mitt Romney and Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel. Romney’s campaign last month accused Obama of seeking to “undermine” military voting rights, and Mandel claimed Obama was “trying to suppress the military vote.”
Morley’s name appears at the bottom of the filing, alongside that of James Dickerson, an Ohio trial lawyer who has been active with his local Republican party organization, according to a bio on his law firm’s website.
In recent months, Morley, a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, has intervened in separate lawsuits in support of Pennsylvania’s and Wisconsin’s (pdf) controversial GOP-backed voter ID laws (Wisconsin’s law was put on hold by a judge). He also has represented a group of Iowa voters seeking to have Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson —who ran in the Republican primaries and could pull votes away from Mitt Romney—knocked off the ballot there.
At issue in Ohio is a lawsuit filed in July by the Obama campaign against Husted, seeking to block him from implementing a Republican-backed state law that scrapped early voting in the last three days before the election for everyone but the military. The Obama campaign asked that civilians, in addition to the military, also be allowed to vote on these days, as they were in 2010 and 2008, without incident. Not long afterward, the military coalition formally asked to intervene in opposition to the lawsuit. It argued that although service-members’ ability to vote early wasn’t at risk here, the Obama campaign’s suit could create a precedent that jeopardized military voting rights in the future, by challenging Ohio’s right to make special rules for the military.
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The GOP is pathetic. Suppressing the vote is simply un-American. The fact that the Republican constituency has shrunk to old, fat, white, evangelical and stupid is no excuse.
Apparently, the only way republicans can win is to cheat!
The willigness of Republican elected officials to openly resort to a 1930's style European intimidation of American voters is a clarion call to all of us that even established, revered political parties can fall victim to people fostering intolerence.
Their views are a cancer on our democratic elections. If left unchecked, it could eat at the very foundations that make us the beacon of liberty that citizens of the world strive to emulate. In America you must have policies that appeal to the majority to be a healthy democracy. Some misguided Republicans are trying to manipulate the vote to reflect a minority view. History has painfully proven, that this is the approach of fools, who will ultimately be vanquished, after they have wrought their damage.
If you have to eliminate voters to win, it's not a win. This happened in 2000; let us not let it happen again. We the people have to stay engaged, if not, we allow those at the top to make our decisions for us without our input.
The Conservatives wonder why their losing, and will lose the 2012 election. I've never saw a party of people in all my life who just lie, back bite, connive, and simply make stuff up against their political opponents, just to win an election. It goes beyond the substance of why their wanting to win an election. There isn't any significance as to why the Conservatives want to win. Romney hasn't said why he's running for President. Conservatives like Jon Husted is purposely altering voting rights in Ohio because he knows there's no substance to Romney's campaign, and it's the only way Romney can win in Ohio, not on the issues which Romney refuses to share with anyone. In the end, these Conservatives are only hurting their political lives by suppressing the vote in this country. Suppressing the vote is truly a pathetic thing to do to the American electorate, and it's all done in the name of their ideology and hatred.
Good for the President.....these people are As@@oles!
And they will use anyone to obtain power. Even the active military. Shameless.
Once again, the argument still stands: If you have to stop people from voting to win, your ideas SUCK!
Why is this 'military coalition' aiming to stop veterans, and the civilians they protected so they could vote, from voting??? They aren't making a lick of sense, but they think they can win by muddying the waters and confusing the electorate. I suppose that if you ask those in the military if they want special preferences when it comes to voting, my guess is they'll say NO.
Theses continue racially motivated attacks had Got to stop. As a Veteran who served 6 years in the United States Marine Corp, I like soooooo many Americans know racism when we see it, hear it and these so-called americans who launch this kind of attack on The President of The United States, are NOT Americans but a group of sick minded parasites, who should go to an inhibited island and they can establish their own country which will only be occupied by people who look exactly like them. I do not know what course other who have read article my take but I for one will use every means necessary to call these individuals out for what they truly are.
^Above comments are excellent, though, use of terms, that are unnecessarily derogatory, do not stregthen your, otherwise, intelligent statements.
I feel that both of these men Michael Morley and James Dickerson should be thrown in jail for what they are doing. I don't think anyone could stoop any lower.
They are the filth of the Earth.
No actually the filth of the earth are the sponges that live off of the people who actually get up in the morning and go to work. More babies - more welfare, foodstamps, free phones, and the like. And do you know where most of these babies mommas live? Thats right, democrat controlled cities. You can try to spin it any way you like, but fact is fact! Thats why trying to suppress military vote will not happen because as everyone knows they/ I will vote for Romney over the foodstamp king ANYDAY!!
@dozerdude you do realize that it's the republicans that are trying to suppress votes, right? How can having MORE voting opportunities for everyone as Obama is suing for be suppressing the vote? Help me out on your logic there... and I refuse to acknowledge your other comments, they're hate filled rhetoric that wasn't worth my time reading.
*Insert hateful republican rhetoric here*
@dozerdude, are you really 1)a racist, 2) trolling 3) or just incredibly ignorant ?
dozerdude, it is the "Red" states which receive the most Federal aid for the needs you list, although those same states receive more in aid than they pay Federal taxes. So it would behoove them to make themselves aware of what the GOP controlled Congress wants to do in the budget. They call for major reductions and in some cases, complete elimination of aid, not just to civilian residents, but to veterans. They want to slash the VA budget. So after giving their time, their labor, and often their pain and loss, the GOP wants to eliminate their access to the VA Medical system, and other benefits a grateful nation has been giving our veterans.
A vote for any GOP candidate is a vote against yourself.
Let me guess, you are anti-abortion rights (anti-woman). I sincerely hope no woman is ever stupid enough to become impregnated by such an ignorant moron as yourself.
Most cities are inhabited by people who like people, that's why they are democratic. If they were repubs they would run for the hills in fear of other people.
Is that why statistics show that it is most white people living on welfare, taking food stamps, free phones and the like?
Is that why a majority of red states take more in federal dollars than they pay in leaving blue states to support those red states?
Is that the filth you're talking about, sport?
Oh please. You know that everyone can see your coded racism. FYI, black people make up only 12% of the entire population. There are more whites on public assistance (welfare) than blacks. It is so sad that we still have people like you in this country. The real welfare recipients are big oil who receive billions in tax payer subsidies while they make billions in profits. The uber-rich have the vast majority of the wealth and the rest of YOU (I don't include myself) fight each other over crumbs. Keep it up. Maybe one day you'll find yourself living in a tent and still blaming so few black and brown people (who use a fraction of the federal budget) for assistance. I know you want to believe that people are living the high-life on $200 a week, but it just shows how ignorant you are.
I seriously hope our military is NOT this stupid. The President was trying to assure that ALL people including Democrats were allowed to have the same expanded voting time as the military and as the Republicans, including the weekend. Are these guys sleep deprived or what? Or just military/religiously brainwashed??
We are not hearing from Veterans, throughout this Ohio fiasco, who should be all over this case? Does this really represent the 'military'? Unless I missed an American Civics class somewhere along the line, I thought that the American Military served to defend American Ideas, when they start serving a different master good luck!
Imagine if you will what would the election results look like, if the public was so distracted by media's sound bites and video clips they would miss the election entirely!
Speculation is sometimes a suspicion that what you've trusted cannot be. Just to help provide something to think about, play the simple opposites, word play, if you will. Take a phrase speculate about that the phrase and its opposite:
GOP-backed military coalition
DEM-backed military coalition
Now what pops into the mind?
Since when do we discuss party based military groups? The change from a generation or so ago to an all-volunteer military force, now a little bit of American History. Wow, didn't take much to go from the Revolution to the World Wars, no such arrangement, draft was key to the scale though Vietnam, that way caused anti-war 'speculation', delayed for score of years. But that that was the risk for waging a fraudulent war or two or …
World history of "all voluntary military" is in the long term not particularly encouraging, given the vast number of dictatorship purchased that way.
The US has not been viewed as being vulnerable to the possibility of a military dictatorship, why in a land of plenty with guns and butter resources would we run up against the natural constraint of those resources? A whiff of that possibility, makes one worry if some of those wars, hot or cold were due to contrived circumstances. But when those war resources are challenged, we enter the world of high tech military, cannot fodder not needed, just few good men trained, paid well enough, and attitudes toward war faltering. Rather than make the public wiser on war making choices, we instead again fall for the bluff and bluster, we can do it all and you won't meet those who served. The all voluntary force, vanished not because it was small, but because it is no longer visible, since they were unseen for decades at a time. The high tech war is not at its peak just, but that technology is increasing being invented by the H1-B visa, while Americans are being sacrificed to the unemployment line.
Compound this with the insane use of private contractors, and the boundary between the defense of the country and business has usual vanished.
The all voluntary forces are not minutemen at the ready with musket, power and ball, but have long term self interest in maintaining their career path.
Now let's revisit the exercise above with a word change:
GOP-backed military militia.
DEM-backed military militia.
Now what pops into the mind?
It is lot clearer as to what is happening, as the high tech resources flow freely around the world, it becomes a dangerous place. The same world is taxing those energy resources, and in particular oil. Unless you’re a deluded neo-conservative, Oil leads to the center of the oil patch, surrounded by a billion nay Sayers, and as much military as nonexistent economy can pay for.
So now we have party based military interest groups, who will sooner or later will want to take advantage of their budding military dictatorship, toss in a few financials, and global oil, gambling and media interests and we can write a book saying it all started in Ohio.
There's no one left to fight for America, for (four) dead in Ohio.
These people can't be on active duty!! In 1953, had I been involved with something like this, I would have been kicked out with a dishonorable discharge, if some gung-ho marine didn't blow my brains out first!!!
Mitt was a bully in high school and is using bully tactics--now. His followers and supporters are merely-- what is called "sucking up" to a bully.
I actually burst out laughing at the last line of the article that explained their reason why. Then I got this picture in my mind of these guys in a tight huddle, pouring over the Obama lawsuit, trying desperately to find something, ANYTHING, they could use against this; sad. If you have to lie and cheat to get the job you want, maybe you shouldn’t have that job.
With the way the GOP folks are running this race, I foresee it turning into a popularity contest in favour of Obama/DP. Worse, the GOP will not only lose this one but the next. Hate is not only evil but anti Christ. The journey of a hateful person towards good is swift and fruitless.
Well, I applaud the Obama campaign for their efforts. The fact the Republicans were suppressing the vote in so many ways was scary. I started out initially with this being my main reason to swing my vote to Obama, and start watching political media closely. Now about 1 ½ months later, I have many more reasons why he is the best choice.
Voter suppression attempts:
1) Republicans Reducing early voting days in state that need it because without them, the line to vote may be 5 to 8 hours long, because some precincts only have 2 or 3 booths .. (Then in Ohio, allowing to open early voting days to the Republican leaning precincts, but not the Democratic leaning precincts. Then shutting early voting for all when the public caught on and got mad. Now under court order they need to open the early voting again, and the Governor is refusing and fighting the order.. Supposedly the cut of early voting was due to budget constraints. I ask you how much have they spent fighting this in court?)
2) Republicans purging the voter registrations only a few months before this election, when this is something rarely ever done. Florida did it about a month back, Ohio, didn’t think of it fast enough so are appealing to the court system for an Emergency need to do so now..
3) Voter ID laws. (being rural, I didn’t think this a problem as I thought everyone had ID).. But, when you look at those in the city who take mass transit, elderly who no longer drive, youth who are in college and many vote in their college town.) the problem is real.. Add to this the following games.
a. Putting the place to get voter ID in a spot that a city person who takes mass transit cannot reach.
b. Opening the office only once or twice a week.
c. Not notifying the public through ads, news or other public means about the changes. Leaving it up to the Democratic party to get the word out, and help people comply.
4) Removing some voting locations (all happen to be in Democratic leaning areas). Thus making the long lines longer, plus making it hard for people who take mass transit to reach.
5) Training and organizing poll watchers that will be stationed at all democratic leaning poll locations to harass anyone they think might be leaning democratic (Not American born, blacks, poor, youth)..
6) Getting rid of Absentee ballot voting.
7) Having a poll ballot 9 or 10 pages long so that the long lines because of few voting booths and not enough early voting days just got longer, because it takes a long time for a person to go through the ballot and for the machines to score the ballot.
Did I miss any?.. Maybe someone else can add on.. I have it good, out in the country, our whole town only has one polling place, and I go in and half of our 25 to 30 booths are empty. If our little town can have 25 or 30 booths, what is with a city only give 1 or 2 booths to a city precinct?
Wow, that is some convoluted reasoning. Bizarre. GOP treats citizens like we are stupid idiots. Insulting
These so-called Republicans should change the party name to Racials... don't they realize that they can't defeat the plan of God Almighty, even they they sometimes lay claim to working in His name. These are who the Proverbs refer to as "fools" and they will not prevail.
The gop has become a party without a heart or a soul.
I think that the whole country could benefit from Oregons way to vote....MAIL IN BALOTS!!
So you obvious liberal supporters don't care about this? We can't put a billboard up in Milwaukee that states voter fraud is a felony, but Gore can sue to throw out military ballots and Obama can stop extra voting for military personnel. Really? No wonder this country is in trouble with pinheads like you people around. Very obviously two different definitions of voter supression.