by thatmfguy » Fri Aug 03, 2012 5:38 pm
So Obama For America and Ohio Dems have filed a lawsuit against Ohio regarding the state's voting laws which give military personnel and their families a few extra days for voting, because it isn't fair and in their opinion, unconstitutional. Under the law, families of armed forces members and civilians overseas can cast early votes through the Monday before an election, while early voting for all other Ohio residents ends on the preceding Friday.
While it may not seem on it's face to be an attempt to disenfranchise military voters, it does indeed have serious potential to do so and presents a clear threat to laws protecting military voters in Ohio. The lawsuit seems to be aiming for an "all or nothing" outcome, meaning that they want ALL voters to be entitled to the extension military voters get, or nobody getting to early vote at all.
According to the National Defense Committee, "[f]or each of the last three years, the Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program has reported to the President and the Congress that the number one reason for military voter disenfranchisement is inadequate time to successfully vote." So obviously, this lawsuit has the potential to make this even worse.
Now, let's look at Ohio's voting laws and the laws regarding early voting for military personnel. The state is actually required by federal law (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voter Act) to provide uniformed and overseas military families early, in-person access to voting booths through the day before the election. Ohio's voting laws allow voting in person 35 days before the election or they can mail their absentee ballot anytime. The problems that many on the left keep bringing up were supposedly during the 2004 election, and since then Ohio has implemented a no-fault absentee voting and a month of early, in-person voting (as well as a no photo-ID law), so the Obama campaign's claim that hundreds of thousands of voter's would be "disenfranchised" by not being able to vote those three extra days that military voters are given (under federal law, mind you) is nonsense.
That is as close to unbiased as I can put it. I haven't added any spin, just facts.
In my personal opinion, it's a ploy by the campaign to limit the votes of a predominantly Republican voting group in a key battle ground state. That, and a continuation of an ongoing pissing match between state and national Republicans and Democrats.
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