In Ohio, early voting restrictions face legal test
(CBS News) In an indication of just how much both Republicans and Democrats have at stake in Ohio this fall, Democrats head to court today in an ongoing challenge with the state over early voting laws they say are designed to suppress Democratic turnout.
Wednesday's court challenge is the latest manifestation of a recent spate of Democratic protests over restrictions guiding how and when Ohioans can vote in advance of the presidential election, which they say could prevent thousands of people from getting to the polls.
According to a recent CBS News/New York Times/Quinnipiac poll, President Obama currently leads Mitt Romney in Ohio by six points, but both candidates are fiercely competing in the battleground state, which carries 18 electoral votes and is considered a must-win for any Republican hoping to win the presidency.
The Obama campaign, along with the DNC and the Ohio Democratic Party, announced last month that they were suing Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine in response to new laws, enacted in 2011, which curtail in-person early voting in the state for the three days prior to November's elections.
According to those laws, early voting begins in Ohio on October 2 and will continue through Friday, November 2. Military voters are able to vote through the following Monday, on November 5.
Why does early voting matter?
Democrats argue that early voting allows for increased voter participation, particularly as the election nears. In Ohio in 2008, they say, 93,000 votes - or nearly 30 percent of all votes in the state - were cast in the last three days of early voting. For comparison, former President George W. Bush beat his Democratic rival John Kerry in Ohio approximately 119,000 votes in 2004. Keeping early voting polls closed the weekend before Election Day, some worry, could depress turnout by a pivotal margin, particularly in a close election.
"The evidence is that the number of people who vote early climbs on a linear trend as the election day approaches. That's the reality of campaigns; that's the reality of voting; that's the reality of individual decision-making," said Paul Gronke, a professor at Reed College and director of the nonpartisan Early Voting Information Center (EVIC).
The Secretary of State's office disputes the notion that ending the early voting period on November 2 would tamp down turnout, pointing out that the voting period starts 35 days before the election and that absentee ballots are being mailed out to all voters, who may use them to vote even if they're not out of state.
"In Ohio it's very easy to vote," Husted told CBSNews.com. "Voters will have potentially more than 750 hours to cast a vote without ever leaving the comfort of their own home."
Husted asserted that due to logistical concerns associated with both early voting and Election Day efforts, keeping the polls open on the two or three days prior to November 6 is a practical impossibility.
"There needs to be a time period for the board to synchronize the voter rolls," he said. "We will have millions of absentee ballot requests. And on Tuesday morning you have these paper poll books that have to go out to the polls in 9,800 precincts around the state... If you're going to make it very easy in those previous 33 days to vote, you have to have some time at the end to synchronize your data."
Even if voters are equally as inclined to vote three days before an election and three weeks before it, however, which is unclear, Gronke argues that encouraging them to do so earlier in the cycle rather than later essentially invites people to vote with less information than they'd otherwise be privy to.
"You're encouraging people to vote before the last pieces of information have come in," Gronke said. "It's the presidential election. I think you want people to be as fully informed as possible."
A high-profile controversy
Debates over early voting regulations have been going on in a number of states across the country, but controversy surrounding the issue erupted on the national stage earlier this month when Romney targeted Democrats for bringing the lawsuit, which he suggested would strip military voters of their rights.
"President Obama's lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during the state's early voting period is an outrage," the former Massachusetts governor said in a statement last week. "The brave men and women of our military make tremendous sacrifices to protect and defend our freedoms, and we should do everything we can to protect their fundamental right to vote."
That charge was categorically debunked - a New York Times editorial decried it as "an extraordinary lie" - and the Obama campaign lambasted the Romney team for the false charge.
Amid the drama, the Secretary of State's office was fielding yet more complaints about regulations guiding how early voting is being conducted in the state: Democrats have charged in recent days that Republicans on local election boards are making a concerted effort to limit the hours that early voting stations are open in areas with Democratic advantages.
In Ohio, state law dictates that local election boards have the authority to determine the hours in which their early voting polls operate, and the Secretary of State serves as a tiebreaker for cases in which the boards are deadlocked on a decision. Husted has said that in those instances he will uniformly opt to limit voting to weekday business hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Jerid Kurtz, communications director of the Ohio Democratic Party, argues that Republicans in heavily Democratic districts are voting for those limited hours in an effort to depress Democratic votes, while those in Republican districts are voting for the more expansive hours.
"We're seeing a very transparent pattern here," Kurtz said. "This entire picture is coming together in a way that makes it look like Republicans in Ohio are trying to game the vote in any way they can."
Matt McClellan, a spokesperson for Husted, brushed off the charge, noting that the "board has the ability to set their hours to whatever they want them to be."
Citing support for uniformity of standards statewide, McClellan says that the Secretary of State favors the more restrictive hours in tiebreak situations because it would be unfair to require counties with limited resources to stay open beyond their financial capacities. Husted himself said that at the urging of the ACLU he's considering issuing a directive that would require the same set of early voting hours across the state, and that he would work with local boards of election to find a consensus that worked for everyone.
Gronke questioned a tendency to limit early voting to business hours, which he argued would be prohibitively restrictive for many people who have day jobs.
"I understand the financial restraints," he said, but he argued it was "unfortunate" that these regulations were being implemented during what is expected to be a very competitive election. "It makes it far too easy to assume partisan motives rather than budgetary motives."
"The pattern is that the increased restrictions have appeared consistently in states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures," he said. "If the Republican Party thinks that pattern is incorrect then change the pattern. I'm not attributing any partisan motive."
Ultimately, he says, even if there is a partisan motive behind the recent efforts, the new guidelines probably won't do much to suppress turnout for one particular party without also tamping down turnout for the other.
"I don't think either party is going to benefit," Gronke said. "I think what's happening here is that there's a close election. Both parties are battling over a small number of voters and they're deploying whatever they have in their arsenal."
Husted seems to see evidence of that effect himself, on the part of Democrats.
"It's political hysteria," he said of claims that Republicans in the state are attempting to suppress turnout. "We don't need political hysteria. We need some thoughtful adults that are willing to make sure that the elections run smoothly."
