A judge on Monday evening denied Ohio’s request for a temporary restraining order to move the state’s primary election from Tuesday to early June.
Governor Mike DeWine announced earlier Monday that he would try to have the state’s in-person voting moved from Tuesday, March 17, to June 2 to comply with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations that older and at-risk Americans stay home to avoid contracting coronavirus.
“We cannot conduct this election tomorrow, the in-person voting for 13 hours tomorrow, and conform to [CDC] guidelines,” DeWine said at a press conference.
“We should not be in a situation where the votes of these individuals who are conflicted are suppressed,” he said. “It is therefore my recommendation after talking with the secretary of state, talking with the attorney general, talking with the lieutenant governor, that voting be extended until June 2, that no in-person voting occur today, but rather in-person voting occur on June 2, but between now and then that absentee ballot voting be permitted.”
DeWine lacked the unilateral authority to move the election date, so a group of individuals in the high-risk group filed a lawsuit in Franklin County Court with the hope that a judge would move the date.
“We cannot tell people to stay inside, but also tell them to go out and vote,” DeWine wrote on Twitter Monday. “I believe when we look back on this, we’ll be happy we did this.”
DeWine also announced Monday that gyms, recreation centers, movie theaters, indoor water parks and trampoline parks across the state will be closed until further notice.
