Early Voting Reinstated in Ohio
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has reinstated early voting for the weekend just before election day for all voters. The Ohio Secretary of State, Jon Husted, a Republican, had earlier decided that only military families could vote on the three days before election day. This was a more-or-less naked attempt to suppress Democratic votes since he knew very well that many Democrats, especially minorities and poorer voters, could not take time off from work on election day and thus preferred voting during the weekend before. The panel said that there was no compelling reason to allow one group of voters to vote during the weekend and prohibit other voters from doing the same thing.