An Ohio congresswoman accused the swing-state’s secretary of state of trying to restrict voting rights by appealing a federal appeals court decision that reinstates three days of early voting to the Supreme Court.
Jon Husted called the decision “an unprecedented intrusion” into states’ rights on election procedures. Early voting on the three days before the election had been cut off, except for military personnel and out-of-country Ohio voters, so that jurisdictions could have time to prepare for Election Day.
Democrats filed suit, estimating that 93,000 people voted in the three days before the election in 2008. They charged that it’s not equal treatment to let some vote early.
“He is using Ohio taxpayer dollars to stop Ohioans from voting the three days before the election. He is trying to restrict the vote. He is trying to contain a vote,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) said last night on MSNBC. “They know that President Obama is going to carry Ohio. And the only way he is going to carry it significantly. They had to try to cut back on the vote by cutting back on the number of days people can vote.”
Kaptur also complained about gerrymandering “that twisted our state in an unbelievable, unprecedented way, breaking precincts so that mistakes would be made, probably throwing out provisional ballots as people go to cast votes in some of these precincts.” Kaptur defeated Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in the primary in a redrawn district, and faces Joe the Plumber next month.
“Let them vote the three days prior to the election as they always have and he is fighting it, right up to the last minute, and using taxpayer dollars to do that. He`s a Republican secretary of state. His job is secretary of state should be to make it easy for people to vote, not hard for people to vote, to simplify the process,” she continued.
She predicted that President Obama “is going to win Ohio, and he is going to win Ohio big.”
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