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 (31.0% of the votes cast in the 2008 election<ref>http://elections.gmu.edu/early_vote_2012.html</ref>).  By the time of Election Day, the outcome in Ohio may have been already a foregone conclusion, and known to anyone who analyzed the voting patterns of who voted early.  Then the votes on Election Day probably did not change the result.  Is this what the Framers had in mind, an election won before Election Day?   

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 nearly 1.8 million votes were cast (31.0% of the votes cast in the 2008 election<ref>http://elections.gmu.edu/early_vote_2012.html</ref>).  By the time of Election Day, the outcome in Ohio may have been already a foregone conclusion, and known to anyone who analyzed the voting patterns of who voted early.  Then the votes on Election Day probably did not change the result.  Is this what the Framers had in mind, an election won before Election Day?   

Ohio shortened its early voting from 35 days to 28 days for the November 2014 election, including only two Saturdays and one Sunday.  Democrats, feeling that a shorting of early voting was disadvantageous to their side, sued to preserve the 35 days of early voting.  A federal district judge reinstated 35 days of early voting, and an appellate panel of 3 Democrat-appointed judges affirmed 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]], even though 28 days of early voting period are far longer than most other states, and the system of little or no early voting in other states is perfectly legal.

Ohio shortened its early voting from 35 days to 28 days for the November 2014 election, including only two Saturdays and one Sunday.  Democrats, feeling that a shorting of early voting was disadvantageous to their side, sued to preserve the 35 days of early voting.  A federal district judge reinstated 35 days of early voting, and an appellate panel of 3 Democrat-appointed judges affirmed 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]], even though 28 days of early voting period are far longer than most other states, and the system of little or no early voting in other states is perfectly legal.