## Facts

- Ohio adopted a broad no-fault absentee and in-person early voting system after significant administrative problems in the 2004 general election.
- For the 2012 election, Ohio law and related directives created different in-person early voting cutoffs:
  - Military and overseas voters covered by UOCAVA could vote in person through the Monday before Election Day.
  - Other eligible voters could vote in person only until 6:00 p.m. on the Friday before Election Day.
- The Secretary of State issued directives that also reduced weekend and after-hours early voting opportunities.
- Evidence in the record indicated that the final three days before Election Day (Saturday–Monday) were heavily used and especially important for voters facing work, transportation, or caretaking constraints.
- Approximately 100,000 non-military voters had voted during the final three-day period in prior elections.
- Political party and campaign plaintiffs challenged the disparate deadlines as violating the Equal Protection Clause and sought a preliminary injunction restoring equal access for non-UOCAVA voters.

## Issues

1. Whether Ohio’s scheme permitting UOCAVA voters, but not other voters, to vote in person during the final three days before Election Day likely violates the Equal Protection Clause under the Anderson–Burdick framework.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion in granting a preliminary injunction requiring equal in-person early voting eligibility for non-UOCAVA voters during the final three days before Election Day.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s preliminary injunction.
- The court applied Anderson–Burdick balancing and rejected a rational-basis-only approach to the challenged classification affecting voting opportunities.
- The court held that plaintiffs showed a likely equal protection violation because the State did not justify the disparate cutoff with sufficiently weighty interests.
- The court agreed that loss of the opportunity to vote is irreparable harm and that the balance of equities and public interest favored preventing unequal access to a state-provided voting mechanism.
- The injunction required Ohio to allow non-UOCAVA voters to vote in person on the same final three days that remained available to UOCAVA voters, leaving counties discretion over specific hours so long as treatment was equal.

## Legal Principles

- Election regulations are evaluated under the Anderson–Burdick framework by weighing the character and magnitude of the burden on voting rights against the State’s asserted interests and the necessity of the burden.
- A state is not required to provide early voting, but once it provides an early voting mechanism, it may not allocate access among groups of voters in a discriminatory manner without adequate justification.
- Generalized administrative concerns must be supported and sufficiently weighty to justify materially different voting opportunities for different categories of eligible voters.
- An interest in facilitating military and overseas voting does not, by itself, justify reducing or denying an otherwise available voting opportunity to non-military voters when the restriction is not shown to be necessary.
- In voting-rights cases, deprivation of a meaningful opportunity to vote constitutes irreparable injury, supporting preliminary injunctive relief.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that Ohio’s unequal in-person early voting deadlines likely violated equal protection under Anderson–Burdick because the State failed to justify denying non-UOCAVA voters access to the final three days of early voting while preserving that access for UOCAVA voters, and it therefore affirmed a preliminary injunction requiring equal eligibility for those days.


Obama for Am. v. Husted, 697 F.3d 423 (6th Cir. 2012)