Federal District Judge Blocks Republican Voter Suppression Law in Ohio

Federal District Judge Peter C. Economus seated far left

 

Despite Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's best efforts to silence opposition to his attempts to sharply curtail voting hours in urban Ohio districts that tilt Democratic, on Friday Federal Judge Peter C. Economus ruled that all Ohio voters should have the right to cast their votes within three days of Election Day. 

Last Tuesday I blogged about Husted on the eve of his impending decision to fire two Board of Elections members from Montgomery County (Democrats Dennis Lieberman and Thomas Ritchie) who opposed Husted's overt attempt to severely limit voting hours despite Ohio's recent history of long lines at the polls for voters. Husted went ahead and fired both men in a heavy-handed control move more reminiscent of Stalin-era control tactics than a modern Democracy.

The story really didn't seem to pique all that much interest from the mainstream media during the long Labor Day holiday weekend that followed a flood of coverage of a rather lackluster Republican National Convention that got more notice for the blatant inaccuracies in Paul Ryan's speech and Clint Eastwood's bizzarre rambling dialog with an empty chair than it did for any visionary ideas for how presidential candidate Mitt Romney would lead the country.

You can't blame Americans for wanting a few moments of respite from the intense political coverage before it starts up again with the start of the Democratic National Convention. Too bad,  Ray Rivera offered up a nice summary of Judge Economus's substantive arguments on why the GOP-led Ohio initiative to suppress voter access to the polls violates the Constitution on the New York Times The Caucus blog.