"The State’s asserted goal of accommodating the unique situation of members of the military, who may be called away at a moment’s notice in service to the nation, is certainly a worthy and commendable goal," the court ruled. "However, while there is a compelling reason to provide more opportunities for military voters to cast their ballots, there is no corresponding satisfactory reason to prevent non-military voters from casting their ballots as well."

[Full text of the ruling is here]

Of course there's no reason to exclude nonmilitary voters from early voting. Unless, of course, you want to make sure Democrats don't have the same opportunity to vote as Republicans do.

At the ElectionLawBlog, Rick Hasen thinks Ohio will push this upstairs:

I think there is a fairly good chance this ruling gets appealed. First DeWine is going to want to push this issue, as are Republicans generally because it presents an opportunity to continue to argue that the Obama campaign is taking steps against military voters (a charge I believe is bogus). The next step of the appeal is to the Sixth Circuit as a whole. As I’ve explained in this blog post and this recent Slate piece, the Sixth Circuit has divided bitterly on election law disputes recently, and there are more Republican-appointed judges than Democratic ones. The step after that, of course, is the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, early voting is underway in Ohio. The only question is whether it will be stopped for the weekend before the election. Stay tuned.

“You would almost have to be as blind as a bat not to see the politics,” said Anthony, former chairman of the county Democratic Party. “Listen, call it what it really is.”

“What it really is” to many Republicans is simply an attempt to help President Barack Obama win re-election.

“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine,” said Doug Preisse, chairman of the county Republican Party and elections board member who voted against weekend hours, in an email to The Dispatch. “Let’s be fair and reasonable.”

I see. Fair and reasonable. Of course. That would be fair and reasonable to Republicans, because black people tend to vote for Democrats, and those dirty urban voters should not under any circumstances, not any, no way no how, be allowed to vote if it is possible to exclude them.

Republicans would argue that they're not excluded because of absentee voting by mail. Yes, we have absentee voting by mail here in California too, but the number of ballots returned by mail is far less than the number sent. They get buried on the table, put somewhere, set aside and then suddenly the date has passed! Just that fast.

There is something more substantial about going to a polling place, casting a ballot, and handing it to an elections official. Even if that official is possibly corrupt. African-Americans traditionally go to polling places and cast ballots. In 2008, the Obama campaign understood this and made sure they got to a polling place to vote, because early voting meant they had access to one long before Election Day.

But in Ohio, keeping the early voting open through Election Day is somehow "contorting the process."

So let me "call it what it really is." It's an effort to silence the will of African American voters, and you heard that straight from the keyboard of a Republican election official in one of the most hotly contested states in this year's election.

I think that's "really called" racism.

Digby:

I don't think there's another democracy in the world in which an election official would publicly make a statement about suppressing the vote of his political rivals. It's shocking.

My theory is that Republicans have adopted the old Soviet-style warfare strategy. Carpet-bomb the nation with crazy until everyone has to stop to regain their grasp on reality. Problem is, by then it will be too late.

Ohio Republicans were busy at work last year trying to make sure less people vote in 2012 than 2008. When voters caught wind of their plan, a referendum was planned on House Bill 194, a draconian piece of legislation which would have made drastic changes to Ohio's voting system. After SB 5 was so resoundingly defeated at the polls, gathering signatures for the referendum was a pretty simple task and the referendum would have been on the November ballot. In the meantime, the "reforms" to voting would not take place until after the referendum.

Ah, but those tricky Republicans had a plan up their sleeve. While signatures were being gathered to put HB 194 on the ballot, another bill passed the legislature. This one was a "technical corrections bill" intended to reconcile the early voting dates for absent military and overseas voters with the voting dates in HB 194. There then began a series of legislative machinations that are so twisted it's hard to believe they weren't intentional. An "emergency bill was passed by the Ohio General Assembly -- HB 224 -- which set a conformed deadline for military and non-military early voters to be the Friday before the election.

But wait, there's more. They repealed HB 194 in May of this year, but failed to repeal the technical corrections.. The repeal amounted to a sneak attack, as ProgressOhio noted at the time:

As it is, after a careful examination, State Rep. Kathleen Clyde made a disturbing discovery. The Kent Democrat found that the Senate's "repeal" bill, Senate Bill 295, really amounts to a sneak attack. Instead of simply striking down House Bill 194, the repeal bill seeks to reinstate one of the most objectionable features -- imposing a deadline on in-person absentee voting starting the Friday before Election Day, cutting off a three-day window when interest reaches its peak.

This is a really big deal. Look at the numbers to see why. In 2004, before reforms were made including that in-person absentee voter measure, 7.6 percent of Ohio voters were absentee voters, representing 10.6 percent of the votes cast. In 2008, after the reforms, 20.7 percent of Ohio's registered voters cast ballots, representing 29.7 percent of the total votes cast.

Moreover, the effect is to keep a longer deadline in place for military and overseas voters while shortening it for in-state absentee voters. Guess which party benefits most from that?

I would be curious to know which ALEC members laid awake at night trying to figure out ways to disenfranchise Ohio voters. Hopefully the court will put a permanent injunction on any implementation of these voting restrictions for the November election. If not, we can count on Republicans to steal Ohio in November. Again.

After all, they're counting on their Voter ID laws to win elections for Romney, don't forget.

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In 19 days we will know whether we beat back NOM and the Catholic Dioceses and protected marriage equality for Mainers, or took yet another step backwards at the ballot box for equality. 30 states have had votes on marriage equality since 1998 and the right-win has won in all 30 of them. We are going to stop that streak in Maine, but we can't do it without the resources to fuel a massive get-out-the-vote operation.

Today at midnight is the last major financial reporting deadline and it also marks the first day of early voting. If you were planning on giving to No on 1 and haven't yet, or have the resources to give again, today is the day to do it. Luckily, we at Blue America have a little sweetener, courtesy of Howie:

Meanwhile we have something nice to offer to donors today. The first 9 people who kick in at least $30 at the Blue America '10 page each wins a special DVD of Barbra Streisand's spectacular 1966 television special Color Me Barbra (which includes a rare poster). And if that wasn't fabulous enough, we also have something pretty mind-blowing for the person who donates the most by 6AM (PT) tomorrow. The picture is above. It's a gorgeous Joan Osborne RIAA custom double platinum award for both Relish and "One of Us." It's rare, collectible, unique and... well, what a gift it would make for anyone who you happen to know who went bonkers over the song below! And, more important, what an opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Maine!

There is new polling out that shows us up 51.8% to 42.9%, but Bill in Portland Maine over at the great orange satan reminds us of why poll numbers are crap:

I take you back to 1997 when, after nine attempts spanning 20 years, the Maine legislature finally passed a basic civil rights bill preventing discrimination in employment, housing, credit and public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation. Governor Angus King signed it. The law was put on hold while the religious conservatives---trying to marginalize our very existence by denying us any official state recognition---launched a war to repeal it by a citizens veto referendum, very similar to the kind they're waging now. They got the signatures they needed and the fight to take away our newly-won civil rights was on.

The polls had our side up by several points. The result? The 1998 referendum passed. The fundies won. The final vote: 51.9% to 48.1%. It's one thing to feel disappointment when your favorite candidate loses. It's quite another when you are the one being voted on by your neighbors, and a majority of them agree that, yes, it should be legal for a Maine business owner to pull you aside and say, "I don’t want no faggots workin' here. You're fired." It took another seven years to finally make that against the law. To this day I still get a knot in my gut when I think about what happened 11 years ago.

The only way we stop this from happening again is to make sure that we can get our voters out to the polls. The No on 1 campaign needs your help to make sure they have the resources to execute their field plan. So give today and maybe take home a platinum Joan Osborne album, or a rare Barbara Streisand poster and DVD.

The Courage Campaign is sending me back to Maine in a week or so. Expect more reports from on the ground there on how your generous donations are being spent. I was there a couple weeks ago and can assure you, the campaign is a tightly run ship, simultaneously on the offense and firing back at the lies spewed from the other side. No on 1 is IDing and turning out their voters, relying on thousands of in state volunteers and assisted by out of state phone bankers from around the country. They know how to win in Maine "and can do it with your help.

I'm a huge fan and advocate of early voting, but even I didn't think the numbers would be this high. Wow.

United States Elections Project:

In the presidential election of 2008, approximately 39.7 million or 30% of all votes were cast prior to Election Day, November 4, 2008. This is a significant increase from 20% in 2004 and part of the upward trend experienced since 1992, when 7% of all votes were cast early. These numbers are likely to increase in subsequent presidential elections as more states adopt early voting and more voters become comfortable with the practice. A summary of these early voting laws can be found at Paul Gronke's excellent Early Voting Center. I discuss the bright future of early voting - among other trends - in this article available at the on-line political science journal, The Forum.

What a beautiful trend line. I hope these numbers keep rising and rising until Congress recognizes that the current system is pretty broken and very antiquated. I'm a fan of declaring Election Day a national holiday and giving everybody the day off to exercise their constitutional right and duty without having to worry about work and whatnot. I'm also a fan of vote-by-mail (see how well it works in Oregon) and expanded Motor Voter efforts. What electoral changes would you like to see?

h/t Markos, who quips, "no more 'election day.'"

More pictures available here

Burnt Orange Report:

Early voting starts today in Texas. In Waller County, a primarily rural county about 60 miles outside Houston, the county made the decision to offer only one early voting location: at the County Courthouse in Hempstead, TX, the county seat.

Prairie View A&M students organized to protest the decision, because they felt it hindered their ability to vote. For background, Prairie View A&M is one of Texas' historically Black universities. It has a very different demographic feel than the rest of the county. There has been a long history of dispute over what the students feel is disenfranchisement. There was a lot of outrage in 2006, when students felt they were unfairly denied the right to vote when their registrations somehow did not get processed.

According to an article in today's Houston Chronicle:

Waller County has faced numerous lawsuits involving voting rights in the past 30 years and remains under investigation by the Texas Attorney General's Office based on complaints by local black leaders. Those allegations, concerning the November 2006 general election, related to voting machine failures, inadequate staffing and long delays for voting results.

The article adds,

"I was angry after registering to vote in the 2006 election only to be turned away at the voting booth," said sophomore Dee Dee Williams.

So what are the students doing?

1000 students, along with an additional 1000 friends and supporters, are this morning walking the 7.3 miles between Prairie View and Hempstead in order to vote today. According to the piece I saw on the news (there's no video up, so I can't link to it), the students plan to all vote today. There are only 2 machines available at the courthouse for early voting, so they hope to tie them up all day and into the night.

I love stories like this. In the face of an obvious ploy to suppress the vote, these young people stood up for their rights and showed that they will not be cowed. Republicans should be worried, because this is a committed electorate.

Pastor Dan at Street Prophets:

Watch it for yourself.

Or, if you're like me and you hate flash, read the boring Miami Herald report:

[Romney] showed poise when a heckler attacked him for being a Mormon: "You, sir, you are a pretender. You do not know the Lord.''

The audience booed the heckler.

''One of the great things about this land is that we have people of different faiths and different religions, but we need to have a person of faith lead the country,'' he said, as the audience gave him a standing ovation.

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Michael Collins of Scoop Independent News has really been at the forefront of reporting voting irregularities. His latest story points to why Christine Jennings's contested results in the FL-13 race should be opened to public scrutiny:

Congress Seats Two Clear "Losers"
Wrong Winner Chosen Twice by Same Voting Machine

Examining Florida 13th and North Carolina 8th
Congressional Districts Leaves Little Doubt

The Election Contest filed by Democrat Christine Jennings and her attorney Kendall Coffey creates complications that could blow the electronic voting world to pieces. In the simplest terms, the Jennings Florida 13th Congressional district case requires a review of the Kissell loss in North Carolina's 8th Congressional district. And that spells disaster for e-voting.

Continue reading »

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

KFDM, Beaumont, TX:

Early voting runs through Friday, November 3rd.

KFDM continues to get complaints from Jefferson County voters who say the electronic voting machines are not registering their votes correctly.
Friday night, KFDM reported about people who had cast straight Democratic ticket ballots, but the touch-screen machines indicated they had voted a straight Republican ticket.

Some of those voters including Lamar University professor, Dr. Bruce Drury, believe the problem is a programming error.

Saturday, KFDM spoke to another voter who says it's not just happening with straight ticket voting, he says it's happening on individual races as well, Jerry Stopher told us when he voted for a Democrat, the Republican's name was highlighted. Read on...

Miami Herald:

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It isn't that the Romney campaign just outright lied about what the Obama campaign is doing in their Ohio lawsuit over limitations on early voting. That's to be expected from a campaign that speaks Lie as its primary language.

No, what's so annoying about this particular lie is how the press just picked it up and ran with it because, well, it got lots of Facebook "likes" and well, a campaign official said it so it must be so, right?

Witness that bastion of DC insider online media, The Hill, repeating the meme but failing to actually correct it in their opening paragraphs:

Mitt Romney on Saturday said the Obama campaign's lawsuit in Ohio to limit military voters to the same early voting dates as non-military voters was an "outrage."

No, no, no. Nay. I wrote this up forever ago, with links to the actual documents, which the erstwhile reporters at The Hill surely must have access to, no? Because if they did, they would have written that the actual thing that the Obama campaign is doing is seeking to EXPAND early voting to everyone, not limit military voters.

As expected, the Romney campaign Etch-a-Sketched it to feed some red meat to the base, because limiting poor women voters is totally okay, but please, never ever say we would limit military voters. One of these things is not like the other. Not at all.

Here's where it gets really funny, though. Look what The Hill reports next as evidence -- proof positive, ladies and gentlemen -- that Romney is getting some traction on his lies.

Romney’s statement received a great deal of traction online — it had more than 10,000 "likes" on Facebook within an hour of being posted.

Hot diddly damn, folks. A national candidate posts a lie on Facebook and gets 10,000 "likes" in an hour and therefore has "traction." Forget about whether or not they game social media. (Yes, they do. Routinely.) After all, Sarah Palin has something like 3.5 million users that "like" her too. Says more about them than it does about her. It's not a huge thing to get people to click the little "likey" thing next to a post.

Now, I should mention that The Hill does get around to saying what the Obama campaign is actually trying to do farther down in their article, but they play the "yeahbut" game with that. They say in one sentence that OFA's lawsuit is intended to expand access to early voting, and in the next, say yeah, but the optics could be bad for the campaign.

How does that work, exactly? The only way the optics are bad is if the reporting is bad. And you know the reporting is bad when even right wing bloggers like Ed Morrissey are calling Romney out on the lie.

We are 90+ days out from a national election that will determine the shape of the Supreme Court for a generation and which also serves as a proxy battle against the oligarchs. Is it too much to ask for political reporters to take a moment and actually, you know, fact check claims of a campaign with much to gain by lying about the other guy?

Evidently the answer to that question is yes. Josh Marshall is right.

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