COLUMBUS, Ohio _ State government leaders were preparing for a legal battle, and they got it over the last-minute decision late Monday to postpone Ohio's primary election over concerns about the spread of COVID-19.
The Ohio Democratic Party and Kiara Sanders, a Reynoldsburg woman, filed suit against Secretary of State Frank LaRose in the Ohio Supreme Court late Tuesday afternoon, arguing only lawmakers _ not LaRose _ could set an election date.
The litigation contends there should not be another primary election day, just an extension of absentee balloting until late April.
LaRose had no authority to send a directive to county boards of elections moving Tuesday's scuttled election to June 2 and that directive should be rescinded, the filing says.
His "reliance upon factual findings and declarations of the Ohio governor and the director of the Ohio Department of Health to assert jurisdiction to move the date of Ohio's 2020 presidential primary election ... was a quasijudicial act unauthorized by law," the suit says.
The action asks the high court to order "adequate" opportunities for Ohioans to vote via absentee ballot by April 28.
"The main intent is to allow the primary to continue and preserve it," said Ohio Democratic Chairman David Pepper. "There are folks out there saying no more votes should be counted after today's non-primary and that would be a complete injustice."
