Republican Voter Suppression Campaign Rolls Back Early Voting by Dan Froomkin

But early voting was apparently too much of a success for some people. In Ohio and four other states — Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia — Republican-led legislatures have dramatically reduced early voting in 2012 as part of what can only be explained as a concerted effort to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning voters. Other parts of that effort include voter ID bils, intimidation of voter registration groups and the purges of voter rolls.

In Ohio and Florida, two of the most critical swing states in this year’s presidential election, the GOP early voting rollback specifically included a ban on voting on the Sunday before Election Day. …

After the GOP won control of many statehouses in 2010, rolling back early voting became a top legislative priority. That meant reducing the period for early in-person voting in Florida from 14 to 8 days, and in Ohio, from 35 to 11. And no voting on Sunday before the election. …

Research by an Ohio voter advocacy group found that blacks made up more than half the early in-person voters in 2008, compared with about a quarter of people who vote on Election Day or by mail.

Research by political scientists at Dartmouth College and the University of Florida concluded that "Democratic, African American, Hispanic, younger, and first-time voters were disproportionately likely to vote early in 2008 and in particular on weekends, including the final Sunday of early voting." …

In Ohio’s heavily Democratic cities — Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Toledo — early voting will be limited to working hours on weekdays in 2012. But, as the Cincinnati Enquirer reported recently, attempts to add extended hours at the local election boards have been blocked by Republicans in urban counties, "even as extended hours will be available in some smaller counties with a strong Republican slant."

The reason, as Ari Berman explained in the Nation, is that county boards of election in Ohio have two members from each party. Ties are broken by the secretary of state.

In solidly Republican counties, GOP election commissioners have approved expanded early voting hours — because why not? But in Democratic counties, they’ve balked. And Husted, the man who said he supports the law because it will bring uniformity to the state, has backed them up.

Republican Voter Suppression Campaign Rolls Back Early Voting