Changes

=== Early Voting ===

=== Early Voting ===

Historically, voters who could not vote on Election Day could cast an absentee ballot well prior to the election, and some military and overseas voters receive ballots for elections nearly two months before Election Day.  In the last 15 years, "early voting" has become legal and popular in many areas of the Nation.  In some States, most of the voting is done by voters at their convenience prior to Election Day (i.e., prior to the Tuesday after the first Monday in November).  In Ohio in 2012, there was 35 days of early voting during which far more than a million votes were cast.  By the time of Election Day, the outcome in Ohio may have been already a foregone conclusion (but one that would not have been known by voters), and the votes on Election Day probably did not change the result.  Is this what the Framers had in mind?  Doug Preisse, a Republican member of Franklin County's election board, described early voting as "contort[ing] the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine."  Matt Huffman, a Republican member of Ohio's legislature, referring to the practice in African-American churches of driving voters to the polls following church on Sunday, "There's that group of people who say, 'I'm only voting if someone drives me down after church on Sunday.' ... Really? Is that the person we need to cater to when we're making public policy about elections?"

Historically, voters who could not vote on Election Day could cast an absentee ballot well prior to the election, and some military and overseas voters receive ballots for elections nearly two months before Election Day.  In the last 15 years, "early voting" has become legal and popular in many areas of the Nation.  In some States, most of the voting is done by voters at their convenience prior to Election Day (i.e., prior to the Tuesday after the first Monday in November).  In Ohio in 2012, there was 35 days of early voting during which far more than a million votes were cast.  By the time of Election Day, the outcome in Ohio may have been already a foregone conclusion (but one that would not have been known by voters), and the votes on Election Day probably did not change the result.  Is this what the Framers had in mind?  Doug Preisse, a Republican member of Franklin County's election board, described early voting as "contort[ing] the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine."  Matt Huffman, a Republican member of Ohio's legislature, referring to the practice in African-American churches of driving voters to the polls following church on Sunday, stated, "There's that group of people who say, 'I'm only voting if someone drives me down after church on Sunday.' ... Really? Is that the person we need to cater to when we're making public policy about elections?"

Ohio shortened its early voting from 35 days to 28 days for the election this year, in 2014.  Democrats, feeling that a shorting of early voting was disadvantageous to their side, sued to preserve the 35 days of early voting.  An appellate panel of 3 Democrat-appointed judges reinstated 35 days of early voting, in a decision rendered just prior to the beginning of the period.  The panel upheld the district court's decision that, under the particular circumstances of Ohio, the reduction of early voting periods that African-Americans had come to rely upon violated Section 2 of the [[Voting Rights Act]].

Ohio shortened its early voting from 35 days to 28 days for the election this year, in 2014.  Democrats, feeling that a shorting of early voting was disadvantageous to their side, sued to preserve the 35 days of early voting.  An appellate panel of 3 Democrat-appointed judges reinstated 35 days of early voting, in a decision rendered just prior to the beginning of the period.  The panel upheld the district court's decision that, under the particular circumstances of Ohio, the reduction of early voting periods that African-Americans had come to rely upon violated Section 2 of the [[Voting Rights Act]].