Posted: January 21, 2011
Oral argument in Ohio provisional ballot case
The Sixth Circuit has posted the audio of the argument in this case. Early in the argument, the court asked where in the Ohio S.Ct.'s opinion was it said that the 27 ballots cast at the Board's headquarters should not have been counted. Counsel did not have the exact passage at their fingertips and asserted that it was an inference from the opinion's more general language. But there is also this specific language at the top of page 22 of the Painter slip opinion: "the board ... conclud[ed] incorrectly under Ohio law ... that 27 provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct at the board of elections during the early-voting period should be counted even though they were cast in the wrong precinct due to poll-worker error."
PDF files in this site require
Commentary
Silence of the Lambs
Dale A. Oesterle
With the election of 2012 now well over and past the second inauguration of the incumbent President, the historical analysis of the events has begun and will last as long as written human history lasts. An interesting tidbit may already be lost to the majesty of the moment.
The voters of three very different states, Alaska, New Hampshire, and Ohio, all had an opportunity to call state constitutional conventions. In each state the voters turned the opportunity down by very similar votes, 68%, 64% and 68% respectively against.
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