Supreme Court Murders Early Voting In Ohio, Oh Well

Oh hi, Ohio, were you getting ready to start early voting tomorrow? Yeah, you can go ahead and cancel those plans. The Supreme Court decided -- in a SHOCKING! 5-4 split, and you will probably never be able to guess who voted how* -- that's on hold for now:  

With just sixteen hours before polling stations were to open in Ohio, the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon blocked voters from beginning tomorrow to cast their ballots in this year’s general election. By a vote of five to four, the Justices put on hold a federal judge’s order providing new opportunities for voting before election day, beyond what state leaders wanted. [...]

The practical effect of the order will mean at least early voting will not be allowed this week — a period that supporters of early balloting have called “Golden Week.” That permits voters to register and cast their ballots on the same day.

This is definitely no big deal at all because it's not as if Ohio has a history of voters having a hard time actually getting to vote.

In Ohio, it’s gotten so bad that a state representative is leading an effort to add a Voter Bill of Rights to the state Constitution to prevent any more efforts to muck around with the ability to vote. Ohio state Rep. Alicia Reece had been told by several of her older family members that there was no way the Supreme Court would ever rescind the federal Voting Rights Act — and then last year, the bastards went and did it, because of how there’s no more discrimination anymore. Just efforts to restrict ways of voting that a lot of minorities use to vote, like early voting, weekend voting, and same-day registration. And hey, if those changes happen to impact Democrats than Republicans, that’s just too bad, as long as no one’s foolish enough to come right out and announce that’s the laws’ intent.

Well, besides that. And anyway, the only people who benefit from expanded access to voting are minorities and poors, and letting them participate in their democracy is basically like voter fraud. Making it slightly easier for them to vote just contorts the vote of everyone else, so it's much fairer for everybody if not everybody can vote. That's how democracy works.

Is there a chance that early voting will be restored before Election Day? Sure.

Depending upon the timing of the state’s filing of a petition for review, Monday’s order may also mean that early voting will not be permitted on most Sundays between now and election day, November 5, and will not be permitted in evening hours — that is, after 5 p.m.

Okay, so it's a pretty small chance, but whatever. At least Ohio can feel secure that none of the wrong people will contort the whole election and defraud their fellow Ohioans by, you know, voting.

*In case you are super stumped by which five justices were in favor of blocking early voting, it was John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. Yeah, we know. We're really super (not) shocked too.

[ SCOTUSblog ]