A federal judge has ruled that voters arrested and jailed the weekend before Election Day must be given a chance to cast an absentee ballot.
In a decision Tuesday, U.S. Senior District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel said Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted should treat the "very small subset" of voters arrested after 6 p.m. that last Friday, and not yet convicted by 3 p.m. on Election Day, as he would a voter who's hospitalized. That includes sending a two-person, bipartisan team to deliver their ballot. Husted's spokesman said the elections chief sees sending two elections officials to the jail for "that person who's broken the law" as a waste of taxpayer money. Spiegel said Ohio law allows jailed citizens on pending charges to cast a vote.