Voters cast their ballots during early voting in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Chris Keane / Reuters
Federal courts on Friday issued a trio of rulings sought by Democrats affecting laws in three heavily contested states in the presidential election: Arizona, North Carolina, and Ohio.
A deeply divided 6-5 decision from an en banc panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals barred Arizona from enforcing a law that would make third-party collection of early voting ballots a felony.
The ruling, if it stands, allows someone other than the voter himself or herself to collect early vote ballots from several voters and then submit them all to the board of elections at once. This is sometimes referred to as "ballot harvesting" — efforts to ensure that potential voters actual cast a ballot.
On Friday evening, Arizona asked the Supreme Court, through a request to Justice Anthony Kennedy, to reverse the 9th Circuit's decision and allow continued enforcement of the law.
In Ohio, a federal district court barred several parties — including the presidential campaigns, and Roger Stone Jr. and his "Stop the Steal" effort — from engaging in any voter intimidation efforts. U.S. District Court Judge James Gwin added "groups associated with the Clinton for Presidency campaign" to the list of those covered by the order from what had been requested. The Ohio Republican Party, who Democrats had sought to include in the order, were excluded.
Democrats brought the challenge, seeking to stop efforts perceived as "prevent[ing] minority voters from voting in the 2016 election." The order, in part, bars the presidential campaigns and Stone and Stop the Steal from hindering would-be voters from getting to a polling place, interrogating or harassing voters or would-be voters, or taking photographs of voters or their vehicles "at or around" a polling location.
The Trump campaign has announced that it will appeal the order.
Finally, in North Carolina, a federal district court ordered officials there to reverse or otherwise alleviate the effects of several counties' recent voter roll purges.
It was not immediately clear whether there would be further appeals or attempted appeals in the North Carolina cases.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2ewMT87
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