Ohio Secretary of State Husted Ordered into Court After He Refuses to Prep for Early Voting
When we last left the early voting tussle in Ohio, a federal judge ordered the state to open the polls on the weekend before the election. The Secretary of State, Jon Husted, planned to file an appeal. But he went further than that. He said that he would not institute the court order until after the outcome of that appeal, and make no preparations for the early voting sites to open that weekend before the election. Husted’s order prohibited county boards of elections from setting hours for the weekend voting.
Lynn Kinkaid, Director of the Butler County Board of Elections, which originally voted to hold weekend hours before Husted’s directive restricted them, told ThinkProgress the board is powerless to act against the Secretary of State’s directive. “I can’t imagine we would disobey a court order…he must have a good reason for it,” Kinkaid said. “He’s the big boss. I’m not going to second-guess my boss.”
Husted fired two Montgomery County election board members after they defied his directive and voted to hold weekend voting hours. Two other Ohio counties have asked Husted to reevaluate the voting restrictions.
The county election boards might not want to cross Husted, but federal judges don’t like it when you deny their existence. The judge, Peter Economus, set a date for a hearing for next week, and ordered that Husted “personally attend the hearing.” I would expect Economus to subject Husted to quite a bit of yelling next Wednesday.
Good. I hope they throw the fucking book at him, these motherfuckers are getting too big for their britches, as my grandmother would have said.
