Early Voting Order Puts Economus in Pivotal Role
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – A ruling by a son of the Mahoning Valley, a former Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge and the first federal judge to sit permanently in Youngstown is at the center of the legal fight that could conceivably decide the outcome of November’s presidential election.
U.S. Judge Peter C. Economus, who retired two years ago from hearing cases at the federal courthouse here and moved to Columbus where he assumed senior status as a judge in the Southern District of Ohio, issued a preliminary injunction Friday that ordered Ohio’s secretary of state, Jon Husted, to restore in-person voting the weekend before the election.
The ruling resulted from a lawsuit, Obama for America v. Husted, filed by President Obama’s campaign, which argued that ending early voting the weekend before the election -- extended hours that were first adopted in 2005 -- would deny Ohio voters equal access to the polls.
In ordering that all elections boards in Ohio halt early voting at the close of business Friday Nov. 3, Husted carved out exceptions for military personnel and registered voters who live overseas. By so doing, Husted violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause, Economus ruled.
Economus, a Democrat appointed in 1995 by Bill Clinton, cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Bush V. Gore ruling that decided the 2000 presidential election. “ …Restoring in-person early voting to all Ohio voters through the Monday before Election Day … places all Ohio voters on equal standing,” the judge wrote in his order.
“This court stresses that where the state has authorized in-person early voting through the Monday before Election Day for all voters, “the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another (emphasis in original).”
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who helped secure confirmation of Economus when he served in the U.S. Senate, said he would file an appeal as early as Tuesday of the judge’s ruling.
“With all due respect to the judge, we disagree with his ruling today. We have always allowed distinction for military voters, and to say this violates equal protection is wrong,” DeWine said in a statement.
"There is already ample opportunity for everyone to vote," DeWine noted. "Voters in Ohio will be able to vote absentee beginning 35 days in advance of the election, and, for the first time, the Ohio Secretary of State is mailing out absentee ballot applications to every registered voter in Ohio. Further, under Secretary Husted's previous directive, voters would have been able to vote in person at their board of elections beginning Oct. 2 through the Friday before Election Day."
Democrats and affiliated pressure groups hailed the judge's ruling.
Project Vote’s executive director, Michael Slater, called the decision “another important victory for voters. The restrictive law that was enjoined [Friday] is part of a coordinated and undemocratic effort by some politicians to erect barriers to the ballot box. This order clears the way for Ohio to return to the proud American tradition of fair elections accessible to all citizens," Slater said in a statement.
In 2008, in the last three days of early voting, 93,000 Ohioans cast their votes, according to officials. In Trumbull County, 616 voted in person on the Saturday before Election Day, 453 on that Sunday and 863 on the Monday before all the polls opened, says Trumbull’s elections director, Kelly Pallante.
In Mahoning County, 1,300 voted on Saturday, more than 1,000 on Sunday and 800 on Monday, said Mahoning’s elections director, Joyce Kale-Pesta. “We had them lined up out the door.”
Winning the majority of the votes cast in Ohio, strategists and analysts of all political persuasions agree, is essential for both Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney to reach the needed 270 votes in the Electoral College. Democrats believe restrictions on early voting would reduce turnout among the party’s core constituencies: minorities and working-class voters who may not be able to vote during the traditional workweek.
Judge Economus is a graduate of Boardman High School, Youngstown State University and the University of Akron law school. He first came to political prominence in Mahoning County’s 1982 Democratic primary election, when he defeated the party machine then controlled by the late attorney Don L. Hanni Jr. In November of that year he was elected judge of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, where he served until his appointment by President Clinton in 1995 to the U.S. Diistrict Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
EDITOR’S NOTE: George Nelson contributed reporting to this story.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.