A divided Supreme Court delays early voting in Ohio

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court delayed the start of early voting in Ohio Monday, a day before it was scheduled to begin, temporarily blocking a victory won by voting rights groups in lower courts.

The decision has potential implications for other states, including Wisconsin, North Carolina, Texas and Arkansas, where state efforts to tighten up voting procedures are opposed by civil rights groups who say they disproportionately affect minorities.

Ohio's was the first of those cases to reach the high court, and the conservative majority blocked lower court rulings that would have jump-started early voting Tuesday.

Their action, opposed by the court's four liberal justices, reversed a federal appeals court decision that had blocked the state from reducing early voting from 35 to 28 days. The lower court also had ordered the state to restore some evening and Sunday voting that the Legislature had eliminated.

Those reductions remain in place as a result of the high court's order Monday. The justices invited the state to seek a full ruling on the merits of the case. If that request is denied or the state loses in court, the expanded voting hours would be restored — albeit too late for this year's election.

Voting days and hours were expanded in Ohio after the 2004 election, when long lines at the polls struck precincts dominated by African Americans and students. The state narrowly delivered President George W. Bush a second term in office over his opponent, Democrat John Kerry.

Since the 2010 elections, 22 states have enacted restrictions on voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. In 15 states, the upcoming federal elections will be the first to test their impact.

The Ohio case is one of several prompted by Republicans' efforts to restrict voting as a way to combat alleged voter fraud and make elections less expensive. The Supreme Court may need to rule in several other cases next month because of their potential impact on November's elections.

In Wisconsin, Texas and Arkansas, state efforts to impose photo ID requirements are being challenged, while in North Carolina, cuts in early voting, same-day registration and provisional balloting are in court. The Wisconsin case is likely to be the next one appealed to the Supreme Court; lower courts have ruled that the state can impose the ID rules this year.

The justices could rule quickly on appeals from either side, or they could agree to hear one or more of the cases on an expedited basis before the elections Nov. 4.

Last year, the high court struck down the decades-old formula used by Congress to decide which states must pre-clear all changes in voting procedures with the federal government. That allowed those mostly Southern states to act independently and forced civil rights groups to challenge laws once they were enacted.

Texas and North Carolina were among the states previously barred from acting without federal approval. The lawsuits in Ohio, Wisconsin and Arkansas will test how the Voting Rights Act works to combat changes already enacted.