Justices deny Ohio GOP’s bid to pare early voting

— The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Ohio’s Republican leaders who sought to block early voting there on the final weekend before Election Day.

The justices without comment turned down an emergency appeal filed by Secretary of State Jon Husted.

The court’s action leaves intact rulings from two federal courts in Ohio that require the state to open the polls for all voters, including military personnel, on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the election.

Four years ago, more than 105,000 voters cast ballots during this final weekend period, and a heavy turnout of black voters gave a boost to Barack Obama’s winning campaign.

But last year, after Republicans took control of the Ohio Legislature and governor’s office, they voted to reduce the time for early voting and to close the polls on Nov. 2. They said this downtime would allow election officials to prepare for Election Day on Nov. 6.

However, the Legislature also said the polls must be open on the weekend before Election Day to accept ballots from members of the military and their families. Lawmakers said that since military personnel can be deployed on short notice, they needed the last-minute opportunities to vote.

The Obama for America campaign sued in July, arguing that all the qualified voters deserved an equal right to vote early. A federal judge agreed, citing the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore ruling of 2000 and its reference to “the right to vote on equal terms.” The 6th U.S. Court of Appeals upheld that decision on Oct. 5.

Husted, a Republican and former House speaker, appealed to the Supreme Court last week. He said the Constitution gives states the power to set the rules for elections, and he said Ohio’s voters have ample opportunities to vote early. Under a directive from Husted’s office, Ohio’s polling places are open on all the week days from Oct. 2 to Nov. 2. In addition, all registered voters may cast ballots by mail, he said.

But Husted rejected appeals from Democrats, including several county election board officials, who said the polls should be open on some weekend days.

Obama’s campaign had urged the Supreme Court to steer clear of the dispute and to allow early voting on the final weekend before the election. General counsel Robert Bauer said Ohio had tried to create a system that was “as arbitrary as it is unique: nowhere else in the country will an eligible voter be turned away from a single, open polling place because the polling place is open for some voters, but not for that particular voter.”

In other developments, the legal fight over Florida’s plan to purge almost 200 voters from the rolls because they aren’t citizens will have to wait until after the election.

Two Florida federal judges had ruled that the planned purge of 198 people could go forward despite claims it violates a federal law against removing voters within 90 days of an election. The judges decided the 90-day rule doesn’t apply to aliens.

A challenge to their ruling was made to 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court decided Tuesday it would not review the challenge before the Nov. 6 election.

Most supervisors of elections have said the removal process would run past Election Day anyway.

The state originally sought to purge some 2,600 names but encountered inaccuracies.

Meanwhile, a judge’s ruling that lifted Montana’s campaign-contribution caps and allowed unlimited donations was put on indefinite hold by a U.S. appeals court, three weeks before the Nov. 6 election.

Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, a Democrat, won a bid to delay the Oct. 3 ruling by a federal judge who concluded that Montana’s contribution limits were unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals based in San Francisco temporarily blocked the ruling on Oct. 9.

“Absentee voting has already begun in Montana and the general election is imminent,” Judge Jay Bybee, who was nominated to the federal bench by President George W. Bush, wrote in a unanimous three-judge ruling. “Allowing the permanent injunction to remain in place before a merits panel of this court can ultimately rule on the constitutionality of the Montana contribution limit statute could throw a previously stable system into chaos.”

American Tradition Partnership, a Washington-based lobbying organization, and other groups had sued to overturn the limits. They won a ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell on Oct. 3 that the cap violates free speech rights.

The federal appeals court temporarily put the rule on hold six days later. Some groups already had begun accepting above-limit donations while others hadn’t, Judy Beck, a spokesman for Bullock, said in a telephone interview.

The ruling “is an important victory for all Montanans,” Bullock said in an e-mail. “The court has allowed us to maintain our citizen democracy, rather than putting our elections up for auction to the highest bidder.”

Donny Ferguson, a spokesman for American Tradition Partnership, didn’t immediately respond to a voice mail message seeking comment on the ruling.

In Montana, individual contributions to candidates are limited to $630 on the gubernatorial ticket, $310 to candidates for statewide office and $160 for candidates of other offices, the group said on its website.

Information for this article was contributed by David G. Savage of the Tribune Washington Bureau; by The Associated Press and by Karen Gullo of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 11 on 10/17/2012

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