Fair Elections OH v. Husted

Ohio voters can cast a ballot in person on Election Day, or by using absent voter’s ballot procedures, Ohio Rev. Code 3509.01. One can vote by mail or early, in person, at a designated location if a request is timely received. Overseas uniformed military, those subject to disability or confinement, those in unforeseen hospitalization and those confined for a misdemeanor or awaiting trial can submit ballot applications up to 90 days before an election. Boards of elections send teams to obtain the ballots from confined voters. While teams visit nursing homes up to a month before the election, they wait until Election Day to visit the jails: persons jailed after 6:00 P.M. on the Friday before Election Day who are not released in time to vote on Election Day and who have not already voted are unable to vote. If a voter or the voter’s minor child is “confined in a hospital as a result of an accident or unforeseeable medical emergency” an absentee ballot application can be delivered to the board by 3:00 P.M. on Election Day and the ballot can be entrusted to a family member or to a team for delivery. No corresponding provision exists for persons in jail on Election Day. Plaintiffs alleged violation of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses, the Voting Rights Act, and the Seventeenth Amendment. The Sixth Circuit instructed the district court to dismiss. The organizational plaintiff did not establish concrete and particularized injury to itself or its members. Even if it could demonstrate Article III standing, it asserts the rights of third parties. Its relationship with the persons whom it seeks to help—unidentified, future late-jailed voters—does not resemble the close relationship of the lawyer-client or doctor-patient relationships recognized by the Supreme Court. View "Fair Elections OH v. Husted" on Justia Law