Jon Husted claimed this week that he “stood on principle rather than expediency” in siding with fellow Republicans in favor of appealing (again) a federal court decision involving uncounted provisional ballots in Hamilton County.
What principle did the secretary of state uphold? Apparently, the right of Ohio to conduct its own elections without federal courts “dabbling in how to count ballots in a local judge race.”
The episode involves a juvenile court judgeship, the Democratic candidate trailing by 23 votes and filing a lawsuit to get provisional ballots counted. Federal courts have been known to weigh state voting laws, especially when a state law throws up undue barriers to casting ballots or counting votes.
In this case, a federal district judge and a federal court of appeals found the state’s provisional ballot law “fundamentally unfair,” in violation of the constitutional guarantee of due process. The specific concern? Ohio doesn’t count provisional ballots if cast at the wrong precinct — even if the error stems from a mistake by a poll worker, say, directing a voter to the wrong table, as poll workers admit happened in Hamilton County.
So, this wasn’t mere meddling by the federal courts. There was a principle at stake, the tallying of votes when common sense makes plain they should count. Ohio has a severe provisional ballot problem. Jon Husted know this. Too bad he refused the court’s help in addressing part of it.
