More good news -- for the third day in a row, voter suppressionists have suffered another setback.
U.S. District Judge Peter Economus has restored the early voting rights of Ohio voters and categorically rejected the Romney campaign challenge that President Obama was somehow trying to restrict the rights of veterans.
U.S. District Judge Peter Economus ruled that restoring a voting window for the three days before the election “does not deprive [Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act] voters from early voting” but instead “places all Ohio voters on equal standing.”
Economus pointed out that thousands of Ohio voters cast their ballots in-person during the three-day period before the 2008 election.
“This Court finds that ‘in-person early voting’ is a voting term that had included the right to vote in person through the Monday before Election Day, and, now, thousands of voters who would have voted during those three days will not be able to exercise their right to cast a vote in person,” Economus wrote. “Plaintiffs submit statistical studies to support their assertion that low-income and minority voters are disproportionately affected by the elimination of those voting days.”
I'm shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that yet another voter suppression law has been found to be discriminatory.
Was it intentionally discriminatory? Judge Economus doesn't say, but I'll give you one guess.
For the Romney campaign to continue repeating the lie that President Obama seeks to restrict the voting rights of service members and veterans, Team Romney will also have to explain-away the ruling of the court in addition to the ruling of fact-checkers.
Team Romney said this week that their campaign "won't be dictated by fact-checkers," but it would require them to be more cavalier to dismiss the court's findings*.
*that doesn't mean they won't