By Nick Corasaniti and Stephanie Saul
March 16, 2020
Ohio’s governor on Monday night said he and top state health officials would ignore a court ruling and postpone Ohio’s presidential primary by declaring a public health emergency because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The governor, Mike DeWine, said that the state’s health director, Dr. Amy Acton, had issued the order based on concerns that the coronavirus outbreak placed both voters and poll workers in potential danger.
His announcement came just hours after Judge Richard A. Frye of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas rejected the state’s request to push back voting to June 2.
Early Tuesday morning, four members of the Ohio Supreme Court backed the decision to shut down the polls, rejecting a challenge filed by Corey Speweik, a judicial candidate in Wood County, near Toledo.
“During this time when we face an unprecedented public health crisis, to conduct an election tomorrow would force poll workers and voters to place themselves at an unacceptable health risk of contracting coronavirus,” Mr. DeWine, a Republican, said Monday night on Twitter.
He added: “While the polls will be closed tomorrow, Secretary of State Frank LaRose will seek a remedy through the courts to extend voting options so that every voter who wants to vote will be granted that opportunity.”
Ohio was one of four states scheduled to vote on Tuesday. The other three — Arizona, Illinois and Florida — said that they planned to proceed with their elections while taking additional health precautions.
Officials in Ohio had said as recently as Sunday that they would go forward with primary voting, but Mr. DeWine indicated that they had become increasingly worried about the safety of polling sites after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned against gatherings of 50 or more people.
By Monday afternoon, Mr. DeWine said he wanted the primary pushed back but did not have the authority to unilaterally delay the election and that a lawsuit would be filed to move the vote. On Monday evening, Judge Frye rejected the request.
Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the governor, said Mr. LaRose would seek through the courts to have another date set for in-person voting in Ohio.
16 States Have Postponed Primaries During the Pandemic. Here’s a List.
In New York, officials canceled the state’s Democratic presidential primary, but a federal judge ordered that the election be held in June. Fifteen other states have rescheduled their contests because of the coronavirus.
Elections officials in the three other states scheduled to vote on Tuesday gave a range of reasons that they were pressing ahead.
“We are fortunate to have numerous options in Florida to cast our ballots safely and securely,” Laurel Lee, the secretary of state, said at a news conference. She added that more than two million ballots had already been cast through early in-person voting and vote by mail.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida added that he was committed to holding the elections, saying, “The fact of the matter is, these things can be done in a way where you’re not going to have crowds.”
In Arizona, the state Democratic Party was seeing huge turnout in the form of early mail-in ballots, said Matt Grodsky, a party spokesman. “We believe that delaying the election would cause undue chaos to this election process,” he said.
Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, said that “we have no guarantee that there will be a safer time to hold this election in the near future,” adding, “The longer we wait, the more difficult and dangerous it could become.”
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