Federal judge rips Jon Husted for unconstitutional change to Ohio election rules

[Kolesar]

Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer

In a scathing 17-page ruling (Read the full ruling in the Document viewer below), U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley said a directive on counting provisional ballots that Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted issued on Nov. 2 was "a flagrant violation of a state elections law" that could disenfranchise voters.

"The surreptitious manner in which the secretary went about implementing this last minute change to the election rules casts serious doubt on his protestations of good faith," Marbley wrote.
...
Marbley noted numerous times that Husted, a Republican, set the new rules at 7 p.m. on a Friday.
"Ohio voters reasonably expect that the secretary of Ohio will abide by the General Assembly’s laws in administering a federal election," Marbley wrote. "For an executive of the state to (flout) state law in arbitrarily reassigning a poll worker’s statutory duty to a voter, with the result being disenfranchisement of the voter, is ‘fundamentally unfair and constitutionally impermissible.’"

Marbley, nominated to be federal judge by President Bill Clinton in 1997, has ruled on numerous issues regarding Ohio election laws in recent months. He has repeatedly stressed the importance of voting rights. "There’s nothing more important than the franchise and the right to vote," Marbley said during a hearing in June. "I grew up in the Jim Crow South and still remember the various mechanisms that were used to disenfranchise voters."
...

Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/11/federal_judge_rips_husted_for.html

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Attorney Subodh Chandra chided Husted for wasting public money in an appeal of Judge Marbley's ruling. Chandra is representing the homeless. They are a group that needs political representation. Huge numbers of Ohioans have been displaced in the "mortgage crisis". Drivers license requirements are obviously designed to prevent them from voting.

I don't know if the federal Department of Justice can go after Jim Crow Husted.

The ruling is viewable at the link for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

[LynneSin]

1. I find it interesting how hard GOP elected officials in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania...

tried to steal the election for Romney. I truly believed in the possibly that they were successful in some level of disenfranchising thousands of voters.

And yet Obama still won those states.

[Botany]

2. I have no doubt that President Obama and other Dems' #s were larger then those ....

.... that were reported. Many dem voters in Ohio went to the polls only to find
that they were no longer on the voter rolls and had to vote a provisional ballot.

But Husted is a "Christian" who fought ACORN's voter fraud (that never happened).

[Raster]

6. I completely agree. Note these are the EXACT SAME mechanisms that saw

....2000 and 2004 elections go to repug candidates. They have been stealing elections for years.

Husted is no Christian... he a racist, rethuglican, plutocrat bootlicker. He belongs in prison.

[Botany]

7. They have been stealing elections for years.

But not this year! I have no doubt that "they" shaved points off of
Obama's margin of victory but many of us in Ohio who were doing
voter protection were ready this time and we were itching for a fight
and we damn sure "punched them fuckers right in the mouth."

I forget all the "things" they did to try to steal another election in Ohio
this year ...... the big thing is when the state's top election official is
working to rig the system for one party.

[Raster]

17. They let Florida and Cruella de Harris be their mold.

Had it not been for the electoral theft efforts in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, President Obama would have won by bigger margins.

In other words: the landslide was actually even bigger than reported. The mandate is more of a mandate that we think.

Husted IS A TRAITOR TO DEMOCRACY, and belongs in a prison cell.

[CoffeeCat]

8. Our Secretary of State in Iowa...

...couldn't get the Dem-majority state legislature to pass Voter ID, so he passed it himself. LOL!

He insisted that this was an "emergency" and he passed voter ID on some "emergency basis" which is legal. Luckily, a judge threw out these laws three weeks before the election.

They tried to do this in nearly all swing states.

These henchmen lemmings who tried to steal the election for the Republican dons--serve criminals at the top and totally ignore the needs of their state and the integrity of their state's elections.

It is really disgusting to watch, but satisfying to see them lose.

[santamargarita]

18. Head over to Arizona, they've filed suit to toss latino votes.

[Kolesar]

3. Chandra elaborates--November 3 at TheGrio.com

...
In arguments before the Circuit Court, Husted deflected any concerns about potential voter disenfranchisement by reasserting that it is indeed the poll worker’s responsibility to ensure that the form of ID presented was recorded, adding that voters should not be disenfranchised due to a poll worker’s “failure to write something down.” Having made that argument, Husted nonetheless is now ordering elections supervisors to throw out provisional ballots where the ID is improperly recorded.

“They told the court, ‘don’t worry, because the poll worker’s responsible for the ID portion,’ and the judge relied on it in his order,” Chandra said. “Why does this matter? Because the people most likely to fill this form out, are the people protected by the consent decree, meaning people who are able vote using the last four digits of their social security number — people who are poor. This could be the issue being litigated over, that decides the election.”

Chandra was referring to a 2010 court order which forced the state to let people without traditional forms of ID, or utility bills in their name, to vote provisionally using just their social security numbers. The consent decree covers the current election. It stems from a 2006 law Husted himself presided over when he was state House speaker in 2006; Ohio’s first voter ID law. Advocates for the homeless and low income communities had successfully argued in court that people of modest means were often unable to produce the kinds of ID that cost money to obtain (Ohio doesn’t offer free voter IDs). They won two separate court decrees, in 2006 when Republican Ken Blackwell was secretary of state, and in 2010 when the state’s elections chief was a Democrat, Jennifer Brunner.

On Saturday, NEOCH, Progress Ohio and State Senator Nina Turner held an emergency press conference, in which they accused Husted of orchestrating a stealth form of voter suppression.

“Husted’s edict deliberately seeks to disenfranchise eligible voters whose votes should be counted,” a press release from Progress Ohio read. “In a close election, it could come down to provisional ballots and this 11th hour directive could be a game changer and is nothing short of voter suppression. Husted’s actions are now the subject of emergency motions which have been filed in federal court in Columbus by the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless.”
...
http://thegrio.com/2012/11/03/groups-file-emergency-motion-over-last-minute-move-that-could-toss-ohio-provisional-ballots/

[ancianita]

4. Glad to see prosecution proceeding from his "flouting." May he be forced out.

[Kolesar]

5. Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic transcribes what Husted's attorney Epstein claimed in court Wednesday

summary by Cohen:
What Epstein really is saying is that he has no legitimate legal argument to make because there isn't a legitimate argument to make. And the argument Ohio now is making instead to justify Husted's actions is atrocious. We shouldn't change the directive now, Epstein told Judge Marbley, because there is no way now to tell which ballots should be counted under the consent decree and which shouldn't be. Got all that? Having created two classes of provisional ballots by an unlawful directive, the secretary of state now wants none of them to be counted. Husted is lucky Judge Marbley didn't order him personally to appear in court.

See the article for the quotes from Arnold Epstein, representing the state/Husted's office:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/federal-judge-on-ohios-ballot-order-democracy-dies-in-the-dark/264983/#

"Democracy dies in the dark"

[John2]

9. So

the U.S. Supreme Court insists on revisiting the voting rights act put forward by Republican operatives in Alabama. The very heart of the birth of voter suppression. They stole one election in 2000. One of my most memorable moments in history is when President Lincoln Put Robert Taney under arrest. I think some Republican officials need to be put under arrest again for violating individual rights under the disguise of the law. It is an abuse of power. For the good of Ohio, Husted needs to be removed.

[happyslug]

20. Lincoln's arrest of Chief Justice Taney as a constitutional check????

While Lincoln and the GOP of the 1860s hated Taney for his Dred Scot Decision, that had nothing to do with the conflict between Lincoln and Taney. That Conflict goes to the issue of Presidential War Powers and how far does it go including suspension Habeas Corpus at time of War.

Habeas Corpus is a broad subject, but the dispute between Taney and Lincoln is fundamental and even cited by the US Supreme Court in 2004 in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the case that held it was unconstitutional to hold the prisoners without trial UNLESS Congress suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus (i.e. the President, on his own motion, can NOT hold prisoners even at times of war without Congressional permission).

The leading dissenter in the Dred Scot Decision would later call Taney's role as one of the finest example of someone trying to protect the Rights of Americans in that it protected what most lawyers of that time period considered the greatest right, the right of Habeas Corpus, the right NOT to be put under arrest just because someone thought you MAY commit a wrong.

Lincoln's Arrest of Taney:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taney_Arrest_Warrant

Ex Parte Merryman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Merryman

Taney's actual written decision in In Parte Merryman:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=442

[DemoTex]

10. A Clinton appointee, with the best name for a judge ever!

Judge Algenon Marbley. It is poetic.

[Hamlette]

14. ought to be in a novel, as the hero :)

[Dustlawyer]

11. We need to follow this ass clown's political career and make sure it is short and over!

Every subsequent race he enters, we need to get out the vote and raise the money to smack his ass down every time he runs! If he runs for dog catcher, we need to find and support his opposition!

[valerief]

12. Oh, those strongly worded letters will certainly change things in Ohio.

Where's the punishment to fit the crime?

[kamron]

13. Thats my ohio the swing bag state...

I thought for sure this state would go red, with McCain/then rommoney. that makes for a good nov surprise when it swung in the right direction, FORWARD! that husted hustler was on a mission, glad it wasn't only me who knew. we're waiting to get that Pr*^ks name on a ballet, so we can fix the voting system for good.

[Hamlette]

15. one slight bit of good news is voter suppression backfired this year

hence the long lines. If people hadn't got the word that this was a GOP plot to win the election, they would have said "line's too long, I'll come back later" and ended up not voting.

And for that, as far as I can tell, we can credit the steady drum beat started by MSNBC, mostly Rachel at first.

[leftyohiolib]

16. well do something about it id you can otherwise you're wasting your time

yelling at people who know what they're doing and how wrong it is. they dont care what you say

[Kolesar]

23. Read the article...eom

[Uncle Joe]

19. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Kolesar.

[FreeBC]

21. "a flagrant violation of a state elections law" so where's the prosecution?

[robinlynne]

22. jail time? anything?