The Obama administration plans to join lawsuits against Republican-backed voting reforms in Ohio and Wisconsin — two major swing states, Attorney General Eric Holder has said.
The moves would represent the first time that Holder’s Justice Department has intervened against statewide voting laws outside the areas that the Supreme Court freed from federal oversight in last year’s Shelby County v. Holder ruling.
Earlier this year, Ohio’s Republican legislature passed laws that cut six days from the early voting period and ended same-day registration, among other restrictions. Secretary of State Jon Husted then announced that there would be no early voting on Sundays or on week-day evenings.
A federal judge recently restored early voting on the last three days before the election, but the other cuts remain in force. They’re being challenged by the ACLU and other civil rights groups, which allege that they disproportionately affect non-white voters.
A brief filed recently by the laws’ challengers uses detailed voting records to establish that blacks are far likelier than whites to take advantage of early voting. In 2012, 20% of blacks did so, compared to just 6% of whites.
Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law was recently struck down by a federal judge, who ruled that it discriminated against black voters. But the state has appealed the ruling, and the litigation is ongoing.
