Court Victory on Poll Observers

This morning Judge Timothy McMonagle of the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court signed a declaratory judgment, effective statewide, holding that political parties have an unlimited right to amend their filings to add additional observers by the deadline of 4:00 pm this afternoon. This negated an advisory that Secretary of State Ken Blackwell had issued late last week, which would have prevented the Democrats from adding 300 of their 500 observers. The litigation team was led by Chris Thorman, Peter Hardin-Levine, and Subodh Chandra.

In addition, when the Secretary of State did not promptly notify all Boards of Elections of the decision, Judge McMonagle extended the deadline by a few hours and scheduled a contempt hearing for Wednesday.