Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) complained last night on MSNBC that “in no time really in our lifetimes have we seen us go backwards on access to the ballot.”
“This is just morally reprehensible to allow more and more big money on one end and shut people down on the other end that would like to vote early,” Brown said of Ohio’s secretary of state vowing to make early voting uniform across the state in time for Election Day.
Jon Husted, a Republican who promised the remedy the complaint of longer hours in some districts, ordered all 88 boards of election to be closed on weekends to be closed on weekends for early voting. The Obama campaign took to court this week the policy of leaving the three days before the election open to only military early voters.
“He acts like that’s a nod to good government by taking away the advantages that overwhelmingly white suburban upper, more higher income Republican counties have,” Brown said. “…They’re tightening up voter rules to the point of keeping people away from the polls.”
The senator is being challenged for his seat this cycle by state Treasurer Josh Mandel. The latest Real Clear Politics polling average has Brown 8.7 points up on the Republican, though the Nation Republican Senatorial Committee yesterday was touting the results of a Rasmussen poll that showed the two tied.
Brown said he believes the voting tussle stems from the right feeling “so threatened by Barack Obama.”
“We have such momentum last year from Issue 2, the collective bargaining legislative — collective bargaining bill, first time in American history when collective bargaining rights were put on a statewide ballot,” Brown said. “We won with 61 percent of the vote, beating back the efforts to take away collective bargaining rights. We have momentum that way. I think that will continue, but it`s all about organizing.”
As an informed Ohio citizen, it seems to mean the good Senator is unaware that we have 35-days of voting available to us prior to election day. Perhaps he should consult with his “organization” before making inane, ill-informed comments…and/or votes?
Finally I agree with Senator Brown on something. We on the Right are indeed feeling alarmed about Barack Obama and his entire administration for their naked assaults on constitutionalism and individual liberty, as well as their generalized lawlessness, not to mention their missteps on defense and foreign policy fecklessness.
If the country does not rally to the serious minded, “adult” approach of the Romney-Ryan ticket, then the nation absolutely deserves to suffer the vicissitudes of a seond Obama term and all of the long-term damage that will accompany it.
And Sherrod Brown is definitely part of that Obama/liberal cohort. Not all of Ohio was particularly charmed by the union Big Money offensive to turn back Issue 2.
Mandel 2012.
It seems there is increasingly little reason to stay one people.
Democrats cheat, and that is all there is to it. Either a. ) they allow themselves to be stopped from doing so again in the future, b.) they get stopped, or c.) we think of alternative political arrangements amicable to both sides–not just amicable to Democrats.
Anything that would be amicable to non-Democrats would be unacceptable to the Democrats.