GOP Blocks Ohio Labor Vote

Governor John Kasich has fully followed the Republican meme of attacking labor at the state level.  But Ohioans fought back and put the Republicans’ draconian anti-union measure on the ballot as Issue 2, scheduled for a vote Tuesday.  Saturday, Sunday and today were the to be the last three days of early voting.  Union members and other working people traditionally use early voting to avoid conflicts between voting and their work schedule.  To block the labor vote Republicans have seized on an obscure provision of a just-passed bill to cancel the last three days of early voting, probably illegally.  John Nichols brought this to light.

…In Ohio this fall, the party faces a serious challenge. Republican Governor John Kasich, a GOP "star" for the better part of three decades, has staked his political fortunes on an attempt to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees while undermining the ability of their unions to function.

The move has proven to be massively unpopular. More than 1.3 million Ohioans signed petitions that forced a referendum on whether to implement the anti-labor law. Polls show that Ohioans are ready to do just that when they weigh in on referendum Issue 2.

But Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State is trying to make it a whole lot harder for Ohioans to cast those votes.

On Friday, across Ohio, county boards of elections shut down early voting for next Tuesday’s election. They did so on orders from Secretary of State Jon Husted. A Republican stalwart,

Husted served as the party’s legislative pointman (rising to the rank of Ohio House Speaker), co-chaired GOP campaigns (including that of 2008 presidential candidate John McCain) and has been closely tied to national conservative groups [Husted delinked] working on issues such as school choice and privatization. While serving in the legislature, Husted was allied with the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, which has promoting Voter ID laws and other rule changes designed to suppress turnout.

Husted claimed a hastily-passed and deliberately vague new state law, which took effect just last week, that early voting was prohibited in the three days before the election. That’s a dramatic change from traditional practice in Ohio, where early voting on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before high-profile elections has been allowed for years — and has permitted tens of thousands of citizens to participate in the process.

The law in question, Ohio House Bill 224, was written primarily to deal with military ballots. Yet, Husted is interpreting it as a bar on early voting. State Rep. Kathleen Clyde, a Democrat who represents Kent, says Hustad is essentially creating his own rules.

"When you take out major chunks (of the legislation, as Husted has)," explains Clyde, "the bill is now unreadable and incomprehensible."

But the confusion has worked for Husted and the GOP. County election officials have, at his behest, shut down early voting across Ohio… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Nation>

This Republican assault on voting was done without notice or warning of any kind.  Millions of Ohioans have made commitments to work on Tuesday, based on plans to vote over the weekend.  Now they are in a bind.  I hope they and their employers realize that it is imperative that they take time off work to vote so that that the Republican party does not get away with this foul scheme to suppress Ohioans’ voting rights.  I also hope that there is some law under which Jon Husted can be charged for his crime against the voters of Ohio.