Rehearing in Bush v. Gore sequel
on Jul 24, 2006 at 12:48 pm
The Sixth Circuit Court on Friday vacated a controversial ruling issued in April that had relied upon the Supreme Court’s 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore to strike down the use of different voting technology in different Ohio counties. The Circuit Court panel found the systems gave some counties’ voters less chance of having their votes counted, thus violating the legal equality assured to voters in the disfavored counties. At issue were punch-card or optical scanning systems that do not give voters a chance to find mistakes on their ballot and correct them.
None of the challenged technology was used when Ohio voters went to the polls in the May 2 primary, state officials have insisted. Three days after the primary, three separate requests for rehearing the case en banc were filed with the Circuit Court. The case is Stewart v. Blackwell (Circuit docket 05-3044).
In four orders issued on Friday (not posted on the Circuit Court’s website), the Court granted rehearing en banc on all three petitions, vacated the panel decision, and issued a stay of the mandate that would have implemented the earlier decision.
An earlier post analyzing the panel ruling can be found here.
