Ohio’s Secretary of State Jon Husted has announced that the state will be appealing last week’s decision on early voting to the Supreme Court:
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s election chief said Tuesday he will appeal a ruling by a federal court that reinstates the final three early voting days in the battleground state.
Secretary of State Jon Husted is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the state Legislature or federal courts should set Ohio election laws.
Husted called Friday’s decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “an unprecedented intrusion” into how states run elections. The court returned discretion to set hours on the final three days to local boards of elections.
“As a swing state, we in Ohio expect to be held to a high standard and level of scrutiny when it comes to elections,” Husted, a Republican, said in a statement. “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.”
With only 28 days left until Election Day, and less than that until Ohio counties would have to comply with the Sixth Circuit’s Injunction, it’s hard to see how this is going to work out for the state. There’s obviously no enough time for the Court to hear the case on appeal, so the matter would have to come down to a decision on whether or not the injunction should be stayed pending appeal. Even that, however, requires that the Court even agree to accept the case for appeal to begin with, and that they do so in sufficient time for both sides to fully brief the argument on whether or not the injunction should be stayed. My guess is that the Court doesn’t accept the case.
