Husted to appeal federal court decision

Secretary of State Jon Husted has announced that he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to make the final determination on whether the General Assembly of the State of Ohio or the federal courts should set Ohio election laws.

Husted will be appealing the Friday decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Obama v. Husted.

Regarding this decision, all of the following may be attributed to Secretary Husted:

“This is an unprecedented intrusion by the federal courts into how states run elections and because of its impact on all 50 states as to who and how elections will be run in America we are asking the Supreme Court to step in and allow Ohioans to run Ohio elections.

“This ruling not only doesn’t make legal sense, it doesn’t make practical sense. The court is saying that all voters must be treated the same way under Ohio law, but also grants Ohio’s 88 elections boards the authority to establish 88 different sets of rules. That means that one county may close down voting for the final weekend while a neighboring county may remain open. How any court could consider this a remedy to an equal protection problem is stunning.

“As a swing state, we in Ohio expect to be held to a high standard and level of scrutiny when it comes to elections.

"However, it’s troubling that the federal courts have failed to recognize that there isn’t another state in the union which can claim Ohio’s broad menu of voting options and opportunity to vote.

In Ohio, ALL voters already have at least 230 hours available to vote in person prior to Election Day, ALL registered voters received an application to vote by mail and ALL voters still have the ability to vote during the 13-hour window on Election Day itself.

“While I will be asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Ohio law through the appeals process, the last thing I want to see is a non-uniform system where voters will be treated differently in all 88 counties.

“Since some boards of elections have already started to take action on hours of operation for the three days before Election Day, I am going to take time to consult with all 88 counties before crafting a directive to set uniform hours should the state not be successful upon appeal.”

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More than 59,000 Ohioans have 
already voted in person across Ohio

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted also announced that Ohio’s county boards of elections have received more than 1.1 million requests to vote by mail, including more than 13,000 requests for military and overseas ballots. In addition, more than 59,000 Ohio voters have already cast their ballots early at their local board of elections or designated absentee voting centers.

“Today marks 27 days before Election Day and Ohioans are already taking full advantage of the wide menu of options they have to vote in this election,” Secretary Husted said. “The fact that nearly 1.2 million Ohioans have acted to be part of the early voting process clearly demonstrates how easy it is to vote in Ohio.”

Information provided below is based on an informal survey of county boards of elections as of Friday, October 5, 2012.

2012 General Election by the Numbers

• 7.9 Million Ohioans are currently registered to vote.

• 1,120,682 absentee ballot applications to vote by mail have been received as of Friday.

• 13,100 military and overseas absentee ballots have been requested as of Friday.

• 59,353 Ohioans have already cast an absentee ballot in person.

Nearly 6.9 Million absentee ballot applications were sent out to Ohio voters over the course of two statewide mailings. (Initial: 6,488,648; Supplemental: 394,094) 92,900 voters and counting have updated their address online at www.MyOhioVote.com.

“We are off to a good start. I want to thank the 88 county boards of elections for their hard work to ensure voting is accessible, fair and secure in the Buckeye State,” Secretary Husted said.