An Abhorrent Assault on Democracy

We have all heard the expression, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” Last week I discussed the unofficial yet strictly adhered to “Super Minority” rule in the House of Representatives, euphemistically called “majority of the majority.” Denny Hastert (R-IL), the former Republican Speaker of the House, unilaterally decided in 2004 that no legislation would go forward (in the House of Representatives) unless a majority of his GOP House caucus supported it. Hastert dubbed it the “majority of the majority” rule. The mainstream media instantly gave credibility to this inherently undemocratic directive by repeating the term -absent any context of its true meaning. However, Hastert’s rule is not about a majority, it is about the empowering of a Super Minority in the House of Representatives. In real numbers, half of the GOP’s House caucus, both then and now, is equal to only about one third of the chamber’s 435 members. Hastert’s Super Minority edict represents the most one sided, Machiavellian rule ever imposed in the People’s House. Due in no small part to a malleable Washington press corps, Americans may not fully appreciate just how antithetical Hastert’s "Super Minority" decree is to our principles of democracy and how it has stymied progress in congress to this day.

                                                                

                                                                      ^{Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Leader, discusses "discharge petition" to evade GOP's Super Minority rule.}

Vote by Mail America contacted House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office and several individual members of Congress to ascertain if, when in the majority, Democrats used or planned to use Hastert’s rule. Unfortunately, we were unable to get a definite response. We also conducted an internet search to discover if House Democrats employed the rule. Our search did not find any reports of Democrats availing themselves of the Super Minority rule when they controlled the House.

Republicans and Democrats should take to the floor of the House to denounce governance by Super Minority. As importantly, rather than continually committing facile journalism that lends credence to an oblique and euphemistic term, the media, particularly the Washington press corps, should relentlessly expose the concept of “majority of the majority” for what in practice it really is, an abhorrent assault on representative government.

Brent Scott

Executive Director of Vote by Mail America

Lessons Learned and Not Learned

Lessons Learned And Not Learned

For the past two years I have noted in this column that “not all Republicans are on board with vote suppression.” In 2010 GOP candidates won gubernatorial contests from Florida to Wisconsin and won majorities in many state legislatures from Ohio to Maine. In 2011, taking their cues from conservative think tanks such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), these new Republican governors and GOP state legislators set about erecting barriers to voting not seen in this country since the days of segregation. While voter ID laws served as the device of the choice, other despotic tactics included shortening the days and hours for early voting and, reducing the number of days for voting by mail. Many of the voter ID laws were struck down by state and federal courts as “unconstitutional.” But the other tactics, particularly reducing the number of days and hours for early voting day, caused embarrassingly long lines in the states of Florida and Ohio.

                                                               

                Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist denounces GOP vote suppression.                               

The Rachel Maddow Show/Youtube

 

Now, less than a month after being trounced in the presidential election, manifestly partisan Republicans are formulating new machinations to deny Americans of their right to vote. Enter Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker,  that proud marionette of conservative think tanks. In May of 2011 Walker signed a voter ID bill into law. Less than a year later Dane County Judge David Flanagan blocked enforcement of the law. In his opinion Judge Flanagan noted “The law disenfranchises voters, sometimes in absurd ways, and targets a problem that is only slightly more real than fairies and unicorns.”  Walker appealed and the law was rejected completely as unconstitutional by Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess. Not satisfied with two judicial rejections, Gov. Walker has set his mind to do away with Wisconsin’s more than three decades old system of same day voter registration. With same day voter registration citizens are allowed to vote when they register on election day. News flash to Gov. Walker, when Republicans in the Maine state legislature abolished same day voter registration the voters repealed the law via a citizens’ initiative . On Nov. 6, voters in Maine went a step further, throwing out the Republican majorities in the state’s House and Senate.

In the aftermath of President Obama’s and the Democrats’ trouncing of the GOP many Republican strategists heaped condemnation upon voter ID laws and other vote suppressive schemes. Unfortunately, too many Republicans still have a predilection for vote suppression. Rather than compete in the market of ideas and win the votes of the many, these GOPs would prefer to limit voter participation by way of unscrupulous election mechanics and outright chicanery. Our present 50 state model of making and changing election law at will and for partisan advantage delegitimizes the democratic process of elections and breeds contempt. It is time for a major overhauling of our election system. President Obama alluded to such in his victory speech on Nov. 6.  America should have one unbiased and nonpartisan standard for registering, voting and counting votes.  We are one country, we deserve one fair and unimpeachable process for this essential ”election” component of democracy.  

Election Reform

          Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is urging her GOP colleagues to revive the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC). In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-TN and House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, Boxer wrote, "I believe the dysfunction we witnessed may have been reduced had this Commission been fully staffed and operational,… I hope that you will take immediate action to make these recommendations so that we can get the Election Assistance Commission working again, and let the American people know that the government is protecting their fundamental right to vote.” The EAC has been in operative for a nearly a year because GOP leaders have declined to name their nominees for seats on the commission.

What the above demonstrates is the incredible self inflicted paralysis of the Republican Party. Unable and/or unwilling to accept that they do not control all levers of government, Republicans have adopted an approach to governing that is at once “do nothing” and/or “blow up the building” if they cannot get their way on every issue. This GOP unilateral line of thinking and acting began during the Clinton presidency when in 1994 Republicans won majorities in the House and Senate. Frustrated Republicans in congress expressed outrage that President Clinton, the leader of the Executive Branch, dared to exercise his constitutional authority and veto legislation that he did not agree with. Led by Bob Dole in the Senate and Newt Gingrinch in House, Republicans ushered in an era of routine brinksmanship beginning with the shutdown of the government in 1995-’96. In successive congresses Republican lawmakers, weather in the majority or the minority, have tended to act as though they control everything, all the time. And, if they cannot have it their way then either nothing gets done and/or they threaten to blow up the building. We saw this in practice in 2010 regarding the once routing “debt ceiling” debate and we are seeing it being played out now regarding the looming “fiscal cliff.”  Republicans in congress are also refusing to name their own members to a bipartisan commissions such as the Election Assistance Commission. Worse, we see this our way or no way mentality in the US Senate where GOP lawmakers have blown up the process by requiring a super majority via filibuster in order to get anything passed and, the empowering of a super minority in the House of Representatives.         

The Super Minority

              In 2004 then House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) unilaterally “enunciated a policy in which Congress will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them…” What does this means in practical terms? A political party must hold a minimum of 218 of the 435 seats in order to control the House. Under Hastert’s decree, no legislation can go forth unless a majority of the GOP caucus supports it. This means that in 2013, when the GOP will hold 233 seats,   117 Republicans (a super minority) must agree on any legislation in order for the other 318 members of the body to be allowed vote on it. If this strikes the reader as ridicules and undemocratic, that’s because it is.

For their part, Democrats in Congress seem not to have noticed this completely radical shift among their Republican counterparts. Democrats have responded to GOP obstruction and routine brinkmanship with meek cries about not conforming according to process and even meeker condemnation. News flash to Democrats on Capitol Hill, it is not enough to simply whine about GOP obstruction. Real action must be taken. Reforming the filibuster in the senate, where Democrats have a majority, is a good start. But, what Democrats haven’t done is engage the Republicans in the arena public discourse. Democrats have not, as Newt Gingrinch did in the 1980s and 1990s  - before he emerged as a GOP leader-  taken their case to the American people directly through C-Span and other available outlets. The battle must be fought not just at election time but all the time.

 

Skin in the Game

               The Republic Party of the 1970s and 80s is gone. It has been replaced by a radical element ever strident in their belief that no matter the outcome of an election, theirs is the only way to go. The time is now for Democrats and others to reject this corrupt ideology by employing constructive yet definite strategies (before, during and after an election) for moving forward with the business of the nation. In Congressional elections the GOP has banished moderates such as Sen. Richard Lugar of IN (defeated in the 2012 GOP primary). At the state level Republicans are intent on disenfranchising tens of millions of Americans of their fundamental right to vote. Democrats and others, to quote President Obama, “Must put some skin in the game.” It is not hyperbole to assert that the heart of American Democracy is at stake. When maniacal partisans of Scott Walker’s ilk brazenly attempt to rig the election process it is time to remind everyone of the words of the late Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!  Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”  President Obama, Democrats in Congress and fair minded Americans everywhere must take concrete steps now to safeguard our democracy and that which facilitates democracy, the right to vote.

Brent Scott is Executive Director of Vote by Mail America

 

Voter Fraud: debunking a manufactured crisis

As the presidential campaign of 2012 heads toward the finish line, Journalist Jane Mayer, of the New Yorker, took a closer look at the issue of voter fraud. Mayer, like other independent journalists, did not find evidence of widespread voter fraud. What Mayer did find was “intensely partisan election lawyers and political operatives, who have spent years stoking fear about election fraud. This cohort—which Roll Call has called the “voter fraud brain trust”—has filed lawsuits, released studies, testified before Congress, and written op-ed columns and books. Since 2011, the effort has spurred legislative initiatives in thirty-seven states to require photo identification to vote.” Read Mayer’s full article in The New Yorker.

Paul Weyrich, Heritage Foundation founder, declaring, "I don't want everybody to vote"

YouTube video

 

Mayer also found and interviewed Hans Anatol von Spakovsky, a son of immigrants himself  - born in Alabama. An attorney, von Spakovsky was a recess appointment to Federal Election Commission (FEC) by former president George. W. Bush, he is a supporter voter ID laws, advises conservative activists groups like “True the Vote” and even wrote a book on the subject, “Who's Counting?” with John Fund. Before being appointed to the FEC von Spakovsky served in the Bush Justice Department where he focused on voter fraud. Democrats in Congress accused von Spakovsky of politicizing his nominally non-partisan office to an unprecedented degree. Source. 

Voter ID advocate Hans Anatol von Spakovsky/Google Images

Republican efforts to suppress the vote, however, date back further than today's Republican Party.  In the 1980’s GOP/conservative operative Paul Weyrich (Deceased) flatly declared, before a meeting of evangelical leaders, "I don't want everybody to vote. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Weyrich went on to create several conservative think tanks including the American Legislative Exchange Council, which drafted so called “model legislation” on voter ID and is also the founder of the Heritage Foundation, where von Spakovsky is listed as a Senior Legal Fellow.

Supporters of voter ID laws (almost all of whom are Republicans) claim that there is no racial component to the laws they support.  But voter ID opponents, civil and voting rights advocates see it differently, Former President Bill Clinton put it this way, “This is not rocket science…  the “effort to limit the franchise” was the most determined “since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting.”

Vote by Mail America noted, in our August 23, 2012 post, Re-Segregation, “In 1964 U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina joined the GOP. Since that time there has been an unmistakable trajectory of the Republican Party away from the values and principles of President Lincoln as the party morphed into and came to embody the views and politics of the hateful, racist, segregationist Thurmond... Considering the new demographics of America, that America is no longer a majority caucasian nation and with bi-racial populations ever increasing, it is at once peculiar and confounding that the Republican Party would revert backwards and embrace the failed hateful, divisive politics of Strom Thurmond.”

Vote fraud is virtually non-existent

In August of this year the award winning journalists team of News21 issued the findings of their investigation concerning claims of voter fraud. The Minnesota Post reported the findings this way, “In an exhaustive public records search, News21 reporters sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity, including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation. Analysis of the resulting comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters... The analysis shows 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud and 400 cases of registration fraud. A required photo ID at the polls would not have prevented these cases." When the paper asked a nonpartisan elections expert, Public Policy Professor David Schultz of Hamline University's School of Business in St. Paul, about voter fraud Schultz said, "Voter fraud at the polls is an insignificant aspect of American elections." Schultz continued, “There is absolutely no evidence that [voter impersonation fraud] has affected the outcome of any election in the United States, at least any recent election in the United States.”
Where News21 took a purely analytical approach, Jane Mayer’s investigation (also finding little evidence of voter fraud)  put names and faces to the long time “alarmist” voter fraud partisans and operatives in the Republican Party.

Jane Mayer was awarded the 2008 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism for her investigative report leading to her book The Dark Side.  Mayer is also the recipient of the Ridenhour Book Prize  and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.

by Brent Scott/ Exe. Dir/Vote by Mail America

Michelle Obama votes by mail. Obama leads in early voting. OR/WA begin voting by mail

With exactly three weeks to go before the November 6 election the candidates for President of the United States are pulling out all the stops. First Lady Michelle Obama Twitted: “I couldn't wait for Election Day!” as she voted absentee. Mrs. Obama even included a photo of herself holding the absentee envelope that contained her completed ballot. According to his campaign, the President will cast an in person early vote in Chicago on October 25th. Both the President and Mrs. Obama’s choice in method of voting are a signal to supporters to get out and vote. In both instances Team Obama garnered what political consultants refer to as “earned” (read free) media attention by voting absentee in the case of the First Lady and setting up a photo op for the President when he votes later this month.

 Twitter via Michelle Obama

Early voting favors President Obama and Democrats by 28 percent

A major national news organization, Reuters, is reporting that President “Obama leads Romney by 59 percent to 31 percent among early voters.” In 2008 then Senator Barack Obama banked so many early votes in Colorado, Florida, Iowa and North Carolina that he won each state even though his challenger, Arizona GOP Senator John McCain, won more votes at the polls on the Election Day. Nationwide, more than a million people have already cast their vote in the 2012 election.

Voting by Mail begins in OR and WA

Voters in Oregon and Washington will begin receiving ballots in the mail this week. In 1998 the state of Oregon, by means of a citizen’s initiative called Ballot Measure 60, became the first state to choose to conduct its elections entirely by mail in ballots. Last year Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire signed a bill into law making the Evergreen State only the 2^nd in the US to conduct all elections by mail. Voting by mail saves states and municipalities millions of dollars and provides voters with enough time to carefully study ballot measures. A 2012 study by the Independent Budget Office/IBO of New York found that the city could “… net annual savings of about $5 million after factoring in additional postage costs. The savings would be attained largely from reduced personnel needs.”

Gov. Chris Gregoire at signing ceremony for SB 5124, making Washington entirely by mail. The Bellingham Herald

Democrats catch up to GOPs in the Sunshine state.

In battleground Florida, where Republican Governor Rick Scott has strenuously tried to smother turnout among minority voters, Democrats have cut into absentee voting which is traditionally favored by GOP voters. Bloomberg News reports that “Out of about 275,000 absentee ballots returned to election offices through Oct. 13, 44 percent are from registered Republicans while Democrats account for 40 percent.” In the same report a Romney/Ryan supporter observed, “Those are numbers the party needs to be concerned with and focus on ramping up,” said Kimberly Mitchell, a West Palm Beach commissioner and co-chairwoman for the Romney campaign in Palm Beach County. “When you see your opposition working to compete in an area you’ve always been strong in, you need to focus on it.” Perhaps Democrats are turning to absentee voting in a tactical response to GOP voter suppression efforts. For most of 2011 and 2012 Florida Republicans have made every effort to first limit voter registration and later to purge voter rolls months before the election.

Coming up: Presidential debate analysis. our report on ballot measures across the country and our review of hotly contested House and Senate races.

By Brent Scott/Exe. Dir. of Vote by Mail America

Under judicial review, voter ID laws crumble

“A citizen has a constitutionally protected right to participate in elections on an equal basis with other citizens in the jurisdiction.” In Ohio, that right to participate equally has been abridged…” So was the opinion of federal court Judge Peter Economus who suspended the Ohio Revised Code ‘ 3509.03 and the Ohio Secretary of State’s further interpretation of that statute with regard to in-person early voting.

In July, President Obama’s reelection campaign filed a lawsuit claiming that a recently enacted Ohio law eliminating early voting in the three days before an election, except for members of the military, violates the Constitution’s guarantee that all voters enjoy equal access to the franchise. The campaign’s lawsuit called for the right of all voters to cast an early ballot be restored.

In his ruling Judge Economus noted that “In 2005, Ohio expanded participation in absentee balloting and in-person early voting to include all registered Ohio voters. Now, “in-person early voting” has been redefined by the Ohio legislature to limit Plaintiffs’ access to the polls… Following Supreme Court precedent, this Court concludes that Plaintiffs have stated a constitutional claim that is likely to succeed on the merits. As a result—and as explained below—this Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction. Source

 

 

In another instance of a voter ID law collapsing under legal challenge,  a Federal court struck down the Texas voter ID statute that was signed into law in 2011 by Republican Gov. Rick Perry. Calling it “discriminatory,” on August 30^th, a three-judge panel unanimously agreed with the argument made by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder - that Texas failed to show the law will not have "the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race." The judges said the new law would require tens of thousands of registered Texas voters who are poor and do not drive cars to travel to a state motor vehicle office to obtain the required state photo ID card. And one-third of Texas counties do not have a Department of Public Safety (DPS) office, they noted. “Even the most committed citizen, we think, would agree that a 200- to 250-mile round trip — especially for would-be voters having no driver’s license — constitutes a substantial burden on the right to vote,” said Judge David Tatel in unanimous opinion. The ruling is the first during the Obama administration by a federal court holding that a strict voter identification law violates the Voting Rights Act. Source

Thus far, state and federal courts have struck down voter ID and other laws and policies that were passed or imposed by GOP controlled state legislatures, governors and Secretaries of State in Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, Iowa and Ohio. Maine state voters overturned a GOP sponsored law that ended election day voter registration. The Justice Department blocked South Carolina’s voter ID law. The GOP dominated Michigan state legislature passed a restrictive voter ID bill but, the bill was vetoed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. Only in the state of Pennsylvania has a court upheld a voter ID law. The Pennsylvania law is currently being reviewed on appeal by that state’s Supreme Court. Since the lower court ruling upholding the law it has been revealed that many senior citizens who are inductees of the Pennsylvania Voter Hall of Fame do not have the proper ID in order to vote in the Nov. 6 Presidential election  CNBC’s “Mad Money” host, Jim Cramer, tweeted that his elderly father would not be able to vote under the new law. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation quickly sent the elder Cramer a free voter ID. But for the rest of the nearly one million Keystone State voters who have been made ineligible to vote, Washington Post reporter Ann Gerhart chronicled the laborious struggle of what one Philadelphia resident (a 54 year old African American woman who has been a registered voter in Pennsylvania since she was 19 years old) endured in order acquire the newly required photo ID. Watch Ann Gerhart on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews.

by Brent Scott, Executive Director of Vote by Mail America

ReSegregation

It has taken forty-eight years for the Republican Party of Lincoln to contort itself into the Segregationist Party of Strom Thurmond. In 1964 U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina joined the GOP. Since that time there has been an unmistakable trajectory of the Republican Party away from the values and principles of President Lincoln as the party morphed into and came to embody the views and politics of the hateful, racist, segregationist Thurmond.

“Metamorphosis”  a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation by magic or witchcraft

 

Segregationist Strom Thurmond



Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott

Lest we forget, Thurmond, ever the race war activist, drafted the Southern Manifesto in 1956 in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated public schools. In the “Manifesto” Thurmond called on all supporters of racial segregation to work to “bring about a reversal of this decision…” Thurmond was also a supporter of the Southern strategy which refers in part to Richard Nixon’s and the Republican Party’s 1968 plan for winning elections in southern states by exploiting racism against Black Americans. Were he alive today Strom Thurmond and the 99 co-signers of the “Manifesto” would be proud of the Republican Party 2012. The GOP has completed their nearly half a century long transfiguration from supporters of Civil and Voting Rights to that of ReSegregationist. From Wisconsin to Florida Republican state legislators and governors have set about on a course to deny the fundamental right of voting to African Americans by way of Voter ID (read Voter Suppression) laws. _{See: An Absence of Honor}    

As we noted in July, voter ID laws place a financial burden (a poll tax) on low income voters, minorities, senior citizens and college students - groups that typically vote Democratic. The Toledo Blade described it this way, “During the last century, when black voter suppression was enforced with poll taxes and literacy tests, black churches rallied their members to protest such blatant injustice... Although poll taxes have been eliminated, voter suppression has taken a more insidious form… If Americans have learned anything over the years, it is that efforts to discourage people from voting never stop. They become more creative and cynical.”

 

Ohio GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted

 

Former KKK Klansman David Duke

Republican Party’s war on Christians
The Republican Party’s efforts to disenfranchise African Americans of the right to vote is so saturated in the divisive, racial politics of Strom Thurmond that Ohio’s chief election official, Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted, is waging a war on Christian voters. For years churches in African American communities have brought entire congregations to register to vote and more recently, to vote early on the Sunday before election day. Last week Mr. Husted unilaterally decided to restrict early voting to weekdays only. The move has been universally called out for the blatantly hostile act that it is, an effort to suppress turnout among African American Christian voters.  

Segregationist Bull Connor

Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Mike Turzai



In 1994, when the GOP won both Houses of Congress for the first time in forty years, the new majority immediately began a campaign to “defund the left.” The defunding took the form of withholding federal funds from PBS and NPR and other ridicules antics. None of it worked.  PBS and NPR are as strong today as they ever were. But, Strom Thurmond’s GOP hasn't given up on defunding, or dividing America. On the campaign trail this year Republican presidential candidate Willard Romney said that he wanted to ‘get rid’ of planned parenthood. With voter suppression laws, euphemistically called “voter ID laws” Strom Thurmond’s Republican Party has graduated from trying to defund programs that they don’t like to disenfranchising, 'getting rid,' of African American voters.

The New America

When their party won big in the 2010 mid-term elections, the GOP began in earnest its descent from being the Party of Lincoln. Considering the new demographics of America, that America is no longer a majority caucasian nation and with bi-racial populations ever increasing, it is at once peculiar and confounding that the Republican Party would revert backwards and embrace the failed hateful, divisive politics of Strom Thurmond. Peculiar and confounding though it may be that is exactly what Republicans have done with their ever strident attempts to suppress the votes of African Americans. They (Republicans) have picked up the mantle and legacy of Strom Thurmond and the segregationist. They have completely destroyed their once proud brand. Neither American demographics nor right is on the side of the Republican Party and their updated for the 21^st century voter suppression tactics. It is important to remember that during the civil and voting rights battles of the 1950s and 60s the segregationist lost.

For more see:

Ed Show on NBCNews.com

The Rachel Maddow Show on NBCNews.com

The Rachel Maddow Show on NBCNews.com

by Brent Scott,
Executive Director of Vote by Mail America

Another voter suppression law heads to court

The campaign of President Barack Obama has filed a lawsuit to block a voter suppression law in the state of Ohio. The suit asks a federal court to overturn a new voter suppression law that was passed on a party line vote by the GOP controlled legislature and was signed by Ohio's Republican Governor, John Kasich. Specifically, the new law would shorten early voting in this battleground state, cutting the last three days before election day. Under the new law only active duty military service members would be allowed to vote early in the last three days before November 6^th presidential election. In 2008, 93,000 Ohioans voted early in the last three days leading up to the presidential election.

Obama campaign manager, Jim Axelrod, Calls Out FoxNews 

“The last three days of Early Vote are especially important to ensuring a free and fair election,” Obama’s Ohio campaign said in a statement to ABC News. “We are moving forward in the fight to reinstate the last 3 days of Early Voting and ensure that all Ohio voters can make their voices heard this November.” _Source

In a discussion of voter suppression laws across the nation, Michael Waldman, President of the Brennan Center for Justice, referred to Ohio as “Florida without the palm trees” on the Rachel Maddow Show on NBCNews.com.

The Obama/Biden campaign posted this statement on their campaign website: “In addition to reducing Ohioans’ access to the polls, the legislature created inequality between military voters who can cast early ballots in person through the day before the election and all other voters who only have until 6 p.m. on the Friday before the election to vote in-person absentee.” _Source

The Obama campaign was joined in the lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party.

by Brent Scott
Exe. Dir. of Vote by Mail America