A lot of you are aware of this because you watch Rachel Maddow:
If you live in Butler or Warren counties in the Republican-leaning suburbs of Cincinnati, you can vote for president beginning in October by going to a polling place in the evening or on weekends. Republican officials in those counties want to make it convenient for their residents to vote early and avoid long lines on Election Day.
But, if you live in Cincinnati, you’re out of luck. Republicans on the county election board are planning to end early voting in the city promptly at 5 p.m., and ban it completely on weekends, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. The convenience, in other words, will not be extended to the city’s working people.
The sleazy politics behind the disparity is obvious. Hamilton County, which contains Cincinnati, is largely Democratic and voted solidly for Barack Obama in 2008. So did the other urban areas of Cleveland, Columbus and Akron, where Republicans, with the assistance of the Ohio secretary of state, Jon Husted, have already eliminated the extended hours for early voting.County election boards in Ohio, a closely contested swing state, are evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. In counties likely to vote for President Obama, Republicans have voted against the extended hours, and Mr. Husted has broken the tie in their favor. (He said the counties couldn’t afford the long hours.) In counties likely to vote for Mitt Romney, Republicans have not objected to the extended hours.
Husted seems to be feeling some pressure from all the media attention, so is reconsidering:
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, under growing pressure to resolve a contentious dispute over whether counties should have extra evening and weekend voting hours this fall, on Tuesday told The Enquirer he is moving toward a statewide order on the politically charged issue.
Recall what happened here. In 2010, Ohio Republicans pushed through still more restrictive laws on voting despite the fact that Ohio already has a voter ID law.
Democrats and allies responded by collecting enough signatures to put that new more restrictive voting law to a “citizen veto”, by qualifying the voter suppression law as a referendum on the 2012 ballot. That action stayed the law.
Ohio Republicans then repealed their own law rather than putting it to a statewide vote. Now Secretary of State Husted is relying on administrative rule changes and sleazy tactics like this to produce the same results he and his Party were unwilling to defend in the form of a ballot referendum. They wouldn’t put their voter suppression law to a statewide vote because they were afraid they would lose. Instead, they’re simply going around voters to put these measures in by administrative action.
These are the actions of desperate people. They ran on jobs, jobs, jobs, and all we’ve seen are laws targeting contraception and abortion, voter suppression attempts and union-busting; in other words, purely partisan appeals to their rabid voter and donor base. They’re governing for the 27%.
LosGatosCA
Pretty putrid people.
EconWatcher
I remember during the 2004 election seeing images of huge lines of people waiting to vote in Ohio. If I remember, reports were that some people were waiting 6 or 8 hours or ever more to vote. Absolutely absurd. That’s effectively a denial of the franchise. And it could well have tipped the election.
I was pretty damn motivated to vote in that election, but I don’t recall if my work responsibilities that day would have allowed me to wait that long (I wasn’t in Ohio, so I didn’t have to). How many people just went home after trying to show up to vote?
Kay
@EconWatcher:
Early voting solved that. It’s also REALLY POPULAR. People love it.
Hence, Republicans go after early voting.
Cassidy
I’ve reached a point where I wish that people who identify as conservative or Republican would just stop breathing. The world would be a better place without them.
El Cid
More real voter fraud, or, rather, fraud in relation to ballots.
Oops, I’m sorry, there’s no story here, because once again it’s Republicans attempting to manipulate elections, so IOKIYAR.
But it doesn’t matter because BOTH SIDES DO IT and Paul Ryan has blue eyes made all the more alluring when he’s staring at “numbers” being “crunched”.
Steve
It’s scary to think how many more purges and restrictive laws they could get away with if Republicans controlled the DOJ and the Voting Rights Division.
mamayaga
Every time I hear about these dirty tricks to make it hard for Dems to vote I wonder how it can possibly constitutional. I thought we were supposed to have equal protection under the law. How is this any different from the phone jamming a few years back that sent some Repubs to jail because it prevented people form getting rides to the polls?
El Cid
@Cassidy: Unfortunately, throughout history they’ve just refused to do that. They’re like some sort of infestation, I would say cockroaches but they’re a lot cleaner, less damaging, and easier to get rid of.
mamayaga
@Steve: Um, just a few years ago, they did and they did. Or was that snark?
Waynski
I think the reason he may be backing off is Romney is so bad. They believe they can steal a squeeker and get the national press to go along with it. Blatant thievery is another story though, even for our stenographers. I hope we see more backing off from Republicans as Romney continues to prance around the country stepping on his own dick and blaming Obama for it.
Kane
When the brightest hope for your party to win hinges upon voter suppression, you know that you have a problem.
smedley
Doesn’t this come under the purview of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:
“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”?
Cassidy
@El Cid: I wish Obama would make a public statement against drinking anti-freeze; just say he’s totally against it and no one should do it and in his next term he’ll make it illegal.
El Cid
@mamayaga: One of the dangers to even moderately democratic governments like ours that you can’t control via abstract rule systems (Constitutions and the like) is that of parties who are fundamentally devoted to subversion and manipulation of the system.
It’s not that it can’t be controlled or fought against in any way or over any time frame, but malevolent parties can get away with a lot for some period of time, and can use their power to manipulate the electoral means of throwing the bums out.
And as we’ve seen and lived through, a lot of theft and damage can be committed during the time period when a potential check on such anti-democratic malevolence might be applied. Also, the more powerful such forces are, the weaker the checks on their behavior and the reprimands for past harms are likely to be.
Valdivia
well I hope the heat of the national spotlight continues so that the pressure really effects an uniform late hour standard in all precincts. Thanks as always for letting us know.
Is the PA decision coming out today? Anyone know?
Steve
@mamayaga: No, it’s not snark. Yes, a few years ago the Republicans politicized the DOJ, but fortunately they didn’t have control of so many state governments, like they do today, to pass so many restrictive laws.
The Obama DOJ is a huge part of the fight against discriminatory voting laws in Pennsylvania, Texas, and elsewhere. I’d like the firebaggers, and anyone else who thinks it doesn’t make a difference which party is in power, to think about that for a while. The campaign to elect “better Democrats” won’t get very far if all the Democratic voters have been disenfranchised by the time we get there.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Valdivia:
The Judge refused to block the law,
Although that is from the AP with no link so we shall have to see.
mamayaga
@El Cid: Yeah, I know slimeballs will manipulate the system, no matter how good it looks on paper (that’s why ACLU gets a contribution from me every month). But the paper should provide meaningful leverage in pushing back. I’ve been disappointed by the Holder DOJ, in this and so many other areas, because it’s been late to the party on voter suppression. This has been building for years, and they’re just now, just before a presidential election, pushing back. They should have been seeking injunctions from the get go.
Kane
Thank goodness for Rachel. She is my daily dose of sanity.
Valdivia
@Litlebritdifrnt:
so that means this goes to the state supreme court and all of it is on them. ugh.
El Cid
@mamayaga: It’s very difficult for the more liberal sector of the power elites to view, much less act upon the view, that the opposition party is largely a criminal enterprise.
RaflW
@El Cid:
As usual, projection, thy name is Republican.
One reason (not the main one, which is still suppressing Dem voters, of course) but one reason Repubs are so paranoid about fraud in elections is that they know they do it, so everyone else must, too.
They probably can’t imagine that decent working class people don’t cheat on their taxes either. But when you file a 1040EZ based on one or two W2s, there’s not much left to hide in Bermuda. Huh.
Nemesis
The shit going down in Ohio makes my blood boil.
JPL
@Valdivia: Here’s a link
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20120815_Judge_upholds_Pa__voter_ID_law.html
f..k
RaflW
@El Cid:
Thus the essential role of an independent and active press. Many of us have been watching (and yelling on blogs) in horror as the GOP has abandoned the basic compact that both parties want a better America but disagree on how to get there.
As the GOP has headed towards building a banana republic in service only to the rich, most in the press have maintained the self-delusion that Repubs haven’t gone power-lust insane.
Can blogs and new media save us from rampant Broderism? I dunno. But we can’t depend on outlets like the WaPo & NTY, the shrinking three broadcast nets, etc.
Valdivia
@JPL:
fucking asshole (the judge, obviously). sorry for the intemperate language. It is now in the hands of the messed up SC.
Dork
Why not just go the full monty and declare that the counties with urban areas cant afford to open their polls at all? Then declare a “compromise” to open it for 8 minutes at 10:17am on that Tuesday.
After all, both sides do it.
terraformer
I know we’ve been reading about this kind of thing for it seems a decade now. And Kay and others are on top of it, outlining what’s happening and what’s being done to foil it.
But…I remain amazed and dumbfounded that, election after election, these blatant actions to disenfranchise Democrats, and Democrats only, clearly, continue. And after an election, when all kinds of evidence of election-day shenanigans surface, we talk and talk about how we’re going to do something about it, next time. This has happened, is happening now, and if something isn’t done soon, will happen again and on and on.
Where’s the outrage? Why is it only Rachel Maddow and the handful of other left-leaning hosts and programs and blogs care to talk about this and motivate action? I think I know the answer: yet another instance of media control by the oligarchy, stifling stories and suffocating dissent. And I the slow-motion train wreck that is our dwindling Democracy is only slowed some more, if that, but it does continue down the tracks.
bago
WKRePublican!
Sorry, you have to get up pretty early to make jokes at this level.
Punchy
@Dork: I hear he’s about to issue 2 ballots per person in all the GOP districts, just in case any voter screws up his/her first ballot and needs to try again.
JenJen
Count me among those who live in Cincinnati (Hamilton County). The Republicans must he terrified this year, I mean, even Rove never pulled something quite this brazen.
I was encouraged that I received an email last night from the editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer which ensured readers that the paper will continue its serial expose on vote suppression in Ohio. It struck me as a little odd, because I don’t recall ever receiving a similar letter, but good for them. Might help save their reputation all the way up until they endorse Mitt.
RaflW
@Dork:
Or pull a Michigan, replace the urban governments with corporate lackeys.
Once you’ve done that, you can have the corporations run computer simulations of how the poors will vote based on some “random” phone sampling and submit that rather than the mess, bother, and expense of unsightly lines at the polls.
Saves a lot of money, and assures that George Orwell will win in the end.
Tokyokie
Husted is violating urban voters’ civil rights under color of law. That’s a federal crime, and the FBI should be dispatched to arrest his ass forthwith.
RedKitten
Thanks for posting this. I have several political-minded friends in Ohio, and hopefully they’ll spread this far and wide to their networks and will start raising a big stink about it.
Hill Dweller
@Valdivia:
From what I’ve read, the Penn SC has 3 Dems and 3 Republicans, but one of the Republicans is a moderate likely to side with the Dems.
The state’s lawyer admitted there was no voter fraud and the law wasn’t going to prevent future fraud, but argued the legislature had the right to make the law, regardless of its discriminatory effects. I can’t believe the judge bought it.
Hopefully the SC strikes it down.
BruinKid
Especially after how they were treated at state party conventions and being disenfranchised in several of them, you would think the Ron Paul crowd would be up in arms as well over these attempts at voter suppression in the name of “freedom” and “liberty”.
Oh, what’s that? They’re silent so far and don’t seem to care? Oh right, I forgot. They only care when it’s their votes being suppressed by the GOP. When the GOP does it to black people, they couldn’t care less.
Silly me, I thought they had some consistency in them.
Sloegin
If not equal protection clause, this would seem like a slam-dunk for slapping the voting rights act in Ohio.
Poopyman
@Hill Dweller: Per the Pgh Post-Gazette:
Hmmm. A 3-3 tie is going to result in the lower court’s decision being upheld, isn’t it?
1badbaba3
@terraformer: To paraphrase Gil Scott-Heron; “The outrage will not be televised.” The information media has far more important matters to cover, like Kim K’s big butt (not that there’s anything wrong with that… big butts, that is). The media largely ignores the source of Obama’s support, like they did in ’08, until the tsunami swept through. Ohio and Pa. repuglikkkans are just trying keep it close so their loss doesn’t make people think of stompings and mudholes. Yeah, good luck with that guys and gals of the Reich. Everybody chill the fuck out, we got this!
rikyrah
The obviousness of this is what they can’t move away from, Kay. In every single case where there’s a Democratic leaning county, suddenly the Sec. of State can’t be bothered to expand voting?
They aren’t even smart enough to do it for a couple of Democratic Counties so that they can try and BS it.
And yes, the SOS is scared to go on the show and explain himself with Maddow.
Though Schultz, Rev. Al and Larry O have also been on this story too.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@JenJen: I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the quality(!?!) of the reporting on voting issues by the Enquirer. Of course they’ll endorse for GOP, but still, the recent series has struck me as remarkable,
kuvasz
Lets hope that the ACLU cites Bush v Gore on protecting voter rights.
Ohio Mom
On a related note, being reliably Blue is the reason why the city of Cincinnati was split into two Congressional districts.
Once upon a time the city was in one district and it sent Democrats to Congress. Then the Republicans in Columbus cut it more or less down the middle, with the western and eastern halves of the city both attached to large swathes of rural and Republican areas.
As a result the city is currently represented by Steve “Stop that videotaping!” Chabot, and, for a little while more, Mean Jean (who will be replaced by another Republican, the Democrats aren’t even trying).
So many ways to rig the vote, so little time.
Catfish N. Cod
A pedantic but possibly important point: I don’t think they repealed the Ohio Voter ID law because they were afraid they’d *lose* that vote. I think it was because, whether they won or not, the fight to win that referendum would have MASSIVELY INCREASED DEMOCRATIC TURNOUT. Which would likely put control of the state house back in D hands, who would then repeal the law anyway. So they did it themselves because it’s better to poke your own eye out than let someone else do it to you.
cckids
@kuvasz:
Except the winning side in Bush v Gore successfully argued to stop counting votes. . . .
Kathleen
@JenJen: I’m shocked that the Enquirer is covering it! When I saw the email from the Enquirer I deleted it. I will not do that in the future. Thanks, Jen-Jen. I have voted early at the BOE downtown the past 2 elections and it’s great.