In lightning speed Republican Secretary of State John Husted overturned his predecessor's ruling without much time to review the issues. It is sad to see that he is more concerned about getting a Republican in office than seeing the votes of people counted. It has been a sad history for Republican officials who tend to care more about the candidate's situation, than the voter's rights, unless they are Republican voters or Democratic candidates.
This action puts the Hamilton County Board of Election in a bind and does nothing to solve the situation. It shows inexperience and partisanship played a bigger role in Husted's act than the desire to find a resolution that complies with both justice for the voters and with the order of a Federal Judge. We can expect Four years of Republican favor in our election. Too many blows to fair elections will crumble our Democracy.
Well, that sucks--mainly because it proves Husted will suppress the vote (as expected).
ReplyDeleteBasically, there are 263 people who went to the right location but were told the wrong table by poll workers. They therefore cast provisional ballots in the wrong precinct; however, the pollworker error renders those ballots valid.
The GOP doesn't want to determine the validity of those ballots (understandably, because they're on top) but it's an easily determined factual matter whether or not those ballots are valid, and Husted is stopping that determination.
This was actually a huge problem statewide due to the consolidation of polling locations, and it'll happen again in 2012. It's not necessarily a partisan problem, but it's bad that the new SoS doesn't seem to care.
I guarantee that people will make a big national deal about this in 2012 regardless of the victor.