U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott said she decided to keep the polls open because a traffic crash closed Interstate 275 on the bridge near Kellogg Avenue – a major commuter route between Downtown and points east.
Dlott made the decision without benefit of either a written complaint or a hearing. It was based on calls to her office from voters stuck in traffic, she said.
“People were using their cell phones from the highway. They wanted to vote,” she told The Enquirer’s Dan Horn. “I did what I thought I had to do under the law.”
An expert on the federal courts told Horn he has never heard anything like it, and Secretary of State Jon Husted told The Enquirer editorial board the same.
“It’s not the way the law is supposed to work,” Husted said. “It’s not the way due process works. It’s not the way to run a fair election.”
The editorial board agrees.
Dlott was appointed to the court by Democratic President Bill Clinton, and Husted is a Republican, but this isn’t a political issue. It’s an issue of little-D democracy.