Good News for Ohio Voters: Final Three Days Voting Is On!

After losing his case to shut down in-person early voting the three days before the election — which were the heaviest voting days in 2008 — twice in appeals court, Ohio secretary of state Jon Husted turned to the U.S. Supreme Court to help him close off this voting opportunity.

Around noon today, word came that it had declined to do so. In refusing the case, the decision of the appeals courts stands.

The final appeals court decision threw the decision about whether to have voting hours those three days to the individual counties, which could have left us where we were during the argument for extended in-inperson early voting hours. As you may recall, Democrats were voting for them across the state, while Republicans were doing so only in predominantly Republican counties. Husted was breaking the resulting ties in predominantly Democratic counties by saying they could not extend hours. But when it was shown that voting hours across the state were consistently unequal in favor of Republicans, Husted issues a directive for consistent hours. Starting next week, for the final two weeks of early voting, Boards of Election and/or early voting locations will be open until 7 p.m.

Leaving the decision about the three-day window to the individual boards would have likely yielded the same result. And many wondered what Husted would do.

We didn't have long to wait. Shortly after the decision (or non-decision) came down from the Supreme Court, Husted issued a directive on consistent statewide hours on those days.

Ohio voters will be able to vote at their BoEs or early voting locations Saturday November 3 from 8 a.m.-2 p.m.; on Sunday, November 4 from 1-5 p.m.; and on Monday, November 5 from 8 a.m.-2 p.m.

The uncertainty is over, and hopefully we will have another big turnout on those days.