Supreme Court rules 5-4 for Republican plan to limit early voting in Ohio

The Supreme Court’s conservatives cleared the way Monday for Ohio to restrict early voting in the state, on the eve of the day it was to start.

The court granted the state’s request to stay decisions of lower courts that threw out the state’s new plan, passed by the Republican-led legislature. But the court’s four liberal justices said they would have stayed out of the case and left those decisions in place.

Ohio argued that the new plan–reducing from 35 to 28 the number of days voters could cast an early ballot–could not be seen as violating the rights of minority voters.

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But a group of challengers led by the ACLU and NAACP said there was no reason for Ohio to reduce early voting except to discourage turnout.

Continue reading:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-rules-5-4-for-republican-plan-to-limit-early-voting-in-ohio/2014/09/29/9bc0042e-4758-11e4-b72e-d60a9229cc10_story.html

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Commentary by The Secular Jurist:  In the 2004 presidential election, long lines and other impediments prevented thousands of Ohioans in mostly urban areas from casting ballots which narrowly gave the state and the national election to President Bush over Democratic Party challenger John Kerry.  Early voting and other reform measures were subsequently enacted to address the controversy.  Since Governor John Kasich was elected in 2010, Republicans have been rolling back those reforms with the aid of their fellow conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court.