Will We See a Florida Recount Rematch in Ohio?
Could we see a repeat of the 2000 Florida recount mayhem in Ohio this year? Unfortunately, the stage is being set in such a way that a close election could be settled by lawyers and judges. Despite the efforts of Republicans to standardize the elections process, several issues remain unresolved, which could cause serious problems on Election Day and in the aftermath if the election is close enough for a recount.
One major pending issue is that the question of weekend voting for both military and non-military voters remains unresolved less than a month before Election Day. Last week, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the Ohio legislature in Obama for America v. Husted and ordered county boards of elections (BOE) to set their own dates and times for early absentee voting. The legislature had passed a series of laws (through a rather tangled process) that ended early voting at 6 p.m. the Friday before Election Day, creating uniform voting hours throughout the state.
The new Ohio law also gave members of the military extra time to vote due to the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). Although the final bill in the saga was signed into law in May, the Obama campaign waited until mid-July to file their lawsuit, setting the stage for this month’s eleventh-hour showdown. On Tuesday, Attorney General Mike DeWine appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
There are several important issues being litigated in this case, which Ohio Sec. of State Jon Husted summarized in an advisory last week :
At stake is more than simply the days and hours for in-person absentee voting for this year’s general election: whether there is a fundamental right to vote by in-person absentee ballot, whether a State’s legislature can change its methods of elections administration once a particular method has been used at even one election, whether military voters can be given additional opportunities to vote under the law, and most strikingly, whether the administration of elections is primarily a task for states or federal judges. For these reasons, my office is appealing the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On all four of these issues, the appeals court ruled in favor of the Obama campaign and against the Ohio legislature, the military, and the Ohio secretary of state.
The most fundamental issue is whether the state legislature can enact and enforce its own election laws. Judge Helene White, a Democrat who was originally nominated by President Clinton and then President Bush as part of a bipartisan compromise, dissented in part but then ran through a logical obstacle course to end up voting with the majority. She acknowledged that the new end date for early voting was the intent of the majority of the legislature and that “states are permitted broad discretion in devising the election scheme that fits best with the perceived needs of the state.” She acknowledged that the Supreme Court has ruled that “there is no abstract constitutional right to vote by absentee ballot.” She admitted that “it cannot be fairly said that there was evidence that a significant number of Ohio voters will be precluded from voting unless weekend and after-hours voting is restored.” She even confessed that “no case has held that voting has to be convenient.”
But why should any of those facts hinder a judge’s ability to legislate from the bench? White agreed with her fellow judges that the possibility of long lines on Election Day outweighed the will of the legislature:
Given the studies presented regarding the heavy use of in-person after-hours and weekend voting, and the legitimate concerns of Ohio’s largest counties and their voters regarding the smooth and efficient running of the 2012 presidential election, I conclude that defendants’ legitimate regulatory interests do not outweigh the burden on voters whose right to vote in the upcoming election would be burdened by the joint effect of the statute and the directive.
A recount is the least of what the citizens will face.
IF ‘The One’ loses, there will be mayhem from pillar to post. In fact, his goons are promising it! His shock troops take their orders from the tippy top, and Van Jones is pulling many of the strings, via funds from Soros etc. The Black Panthers are chomping at the bit, and so much more is in store!
And, the following is hardly conspiracy theory nonsense -
http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/22/update-multiple-sources-within-dhs-ringing-alarm-bells-is-anyone-listening-northeast-intelligence-network-others-too-
commentary-by-adina-kutnicki-105/
Hell hath no fury like a revolutionary (and his surrogates) forced to give up power!
Patriots, stay alert.
No worries…Al Franken will see to it that everything stays on the up and up.
One good reason why I now am carrying two 40 caliber pistols and a 5.56 NATO AR 15 with 5 30 round mags.
“IF ‘The One’ loses, there will be mayhem from pillar to post.”
I really think that scenario is extremely unlikely. There may be some mischief around the ghettos because they won’t be gittin’ no mo’ Obama money. But that can be limited to their own immediate vicinity.
I honestly don’t believe it will be as close as people are saying. Have our people become THAT stupid? We only need three issues: Lies, corruption, incompetence. We don’t even need to get into policy differences. If you want a lying, corrupt, incompetent President, then by all means vote for Obama. But who wants that?
We just can’t have another four years of this clown. We just can’t. It will kill us as a nation.
You’re right. That would be the case for those voting legally with forethought. However, the Obama campaign has not been recruiting from that demographic. And no one really REALLY knows just how many of the illegal variety wait in the wings to be released on command. That is the great unknown in this election.
Even if The One is decisively defeated we will likely be treated to civil unrest. Obama and his minions have made it perfectly clear that to disagree with them is racist. The fact that Obama is a bumbling, vacuous, narcissistic mediocrity unfit to manage a mom an pop grocery is besides the point. So be prepared, folks.
That’s where my fears lie. Even a substantial defeat of Obama — say, a 6% popular vote margin and 300+ electoral votes for Romney — would mean nothing to his hairier-eyed backers. Obama’s lieutenants would think little of egging them on to outright violence for “their guy.”
Such violence probably wouldn’t change the result of the election…but it would surely have an impact upon subsequent ones.
As long as cable TV still works, and “Dancing with the Stars” or whatever, is on, there won’t be any Civil Unrest. Television – the ultimate “opiate of the masses.”
and where will the “unrest” happen?
it will happen in the bluest of blue cesspools around the country
in other words, i’m not very concerned
I hear you… let the obama maggots riot. Burn down their space and the space of the progressive/liberals who moved into segregated suburbs next door.
Meh, I does not care.
One thing I do know, there will not be any obama rioters within’ 200-300 yards of me… well not for very long anyways.
Even if he loses, I shudder at the damage this lame duck would do.
If I remember correctly there was some talk about a recount in Ohio in 2004. The Dems decided against it. My thought then was that Ohio’s voting system could never withstand such close scrutiny.
We simply need to encourage the highest possible turnout everywhere. The larger the margin of victory for Romney in the popular vote, the less chance of unrest.
It is easy to talk protests on Twitter, but I think even the majority of Obama’s own voters realize he has not met their expectations.
Even so, election day is likely to be chaotic in many areas. Vote early if possible. Encourage others to vote early.
IMO, Romney can win big. But he will lose a close race.
Close races can be stolen in big Democrat strongholds like Cleveland.
I hope another big state, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin can give Romney a cushion.
Depends who is running Ohio, esp. the secretary of state. Jon A. Husted is a ‘Pubbie and so is the Governor.
If it is close, and if the initial recount reconfirms the original outcome, Husted just needs the guts to go ahead and certify the election and enjoy the screaming from the Democrats.
You forgot the lamentations of their women…
Gotta love the lamentations of their women!
What?… they have women? How do you tell? Maybe the beards… Ahh yes, the democrat men are so effeminate.
Eric The Red Holder is against anything that inhibits illegal voting and supports anything that encourages the lazy and irresponsible to vote.
If long lines on election day are that big a problem, the state needs to open more polling stations. The early voting for the military is fine, but I can think of very few other reasons why it should be allowed.
Of course early-in-person is better than absentee when it comes to the integrity of the vote, but I’m not a big fan of either one. Register where you live, and get your fanny out to the polls with photo ID in hand.
And this is why Soros has made it an important goal to get “his” people elected to the Sec. of State in as many states as possible, they control everything after the votes are cast. Any discrepancies, they have control of it.
I just watched the movie Atlas Shrugged Part-1 and had to laugh when I noticed it started out as taking place in the year 2016. coincidence? I don’t think so. So many things in that book/movie are so close to what I am seeing in the news today. If Obummer gets reelected it may turn from a great book into prophecy come true.
I live in Ohio. Northwest Ohio, to be exact.
I’ve been driving around a lot lately. I can tell you all, I see at least five Romney/Ryan yard signs for every one Obama/Biden yard sign. That’s a conservative estimate (no pun intended). I did not see anything like this level of support for McCain four years ago (but I still have my McCain/Palin yard sign…).
I agree with “crosspatch” #2 above. Or at least, I’m tempted to agree. The polls are skewed because they are using turnout models either based on 2008 – which way over-predicts the Democratic turnout for this election – or 2004, like Rasmussen (which is actually a combination of ’04 and ’08). In both cases, what is being missed here is that we’re likely to see a very big spike in turnout from GOP and GOP-leaning independents. This is not in the polling models, at least not in any major ones that I’ve heard of.
So, I expect Romney to win in Ohio and nationally by a comfortable margin. Not a 1980-style landslide – the MSM is sure to cushion the blow against Obama, whom I expect to carry between ten and fourteen states – but this is not going to be a recount situation a la 2000….
…Unless the election is rigged. And I am worried about that. I put NOTHING past Obama & Co.
I also fully agree with “carla” #3 above. While I expect Romney to win, I also expect BIG 1960s-style (think Watts or Detroit, or the Rodney King riots) in many major cities. The big flashpoints will be New York, LA, Chicago, Miami, Cleveland, Detroit. The inner city “free phone” set is going to go bonkers when their messiah loses. To them, a Romney win will surely represent a ‘rigged conspiracy’ propagated by “the man”. It will be very messy.
Are there butterfly ballots in Ohio??
Fortunately, there are no butterfly ballots. Ohio uses a combination of optical scanners and direct recording electronic (DRE) machines.
Hanging chads and votes found in hatch-backs…watch for it.
Democrat pundits and officials already tried the false narrative in the Bush election in Ohio. It didn’t work out for them because each polling place has an equal number of Democrats and Republican watchers who all agreed there was no funny business by Republicans. This did not stop the Official Democrat goons from holding a kangaroo court making then Secretary of State Ken Blackwell explain why it was close because they couldn’t prove anything else. For years after it was proven there was no funny business anywhere liberal pundits still saw no reason not to say Republicans had somehow cheated in the election. I expect the same will happen this time if it’s close and as usual it will be all talk of Republican chicanery even if proven otherwise and we can expect the lie to continue far into the future. This is what liberals do. They never give up not even in defeat it’s about time we took that page and put it in our book. Investigations of wrong doing by liberals should never stop just because we won.
No, but especially if we play it right. We know what is going to happen, union thugs and community organizers (mostly black) are going to try to stuff the ballot boxes in many ways. One way will be to pay folks cash, $10, maybe, $20, each time they vote.
You know there will be shrinkage given the innate integrity of, well, union thugs and community organizers. We can further shrink the amount available to buy votes by launching a whisper campaign. We need a couple of Ohio “voters” to “publicly” complain that they “only” got $500 each time they early voted. Whether they complain on Twitter, on call-in leftist radio, college radio or whatever, I don’t know. But, let’s help the dems to raise the cost of voter fraud to living wage levels!