Opinion ID: 183767
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Effect of the Ohio Supreme Court's Decision in Painter

Text: Defendants argue that, even if there is an equal-protection problem, we should order the Board to proceed under the Painter decision and Secretary Husted's Directive 2011-05. The Ohio Supreme Court in Painter, however, addressed a limited area of state law with respect to provisional ballots. Specifically, the state-law holdings of Painter are that (1) there is no exception to the statutory requirement that provisional ballots be cast in the voter's correct precinct, Painter, 941 N.E.2d at 794; (2) election officials err in presuming poll-worker error because `in the absence of evidence to the contrary, [poll workers] . . . will be presumed to have properly performed their duties in a regular and lawful manner and not to have acted illegally or unlawfully,' id. at 798 (quoting Skaggs, 900 N.E.2d at 990) (alteration omitted); and (3) statistical analysis [19] is not proper evidence of poll-worker error, id. (citing State ex rel. Yiamouyiannis v. Taft, 65 Ohio St.3d 205, 602 N.E.2d 644 (1992)). We agree with both the district court and the Ohio Supreme Court that [i]t is within the province of the Ohio Supreme Court to determine whether Secretary of State Jennifer L. Brunner's directives comply with state law governing election procedures.' Painter, 941 N.E.2d at 797-98 (quoting R.32 (Dist. Ct. Order Denying Mot. to Enjoin State-Court Proceedings at 1) (alteration in original) (emphasis added)). However, as we indicated in our analysis of Pullman abstention, these state-law issues do not resolve the federal constitutional question in this case. Moreover, the Ohio Supreme Court's instruction to the Board to review the [849] provisional ballots that are the subject of [the district court's] order . . . with exactly the same procedures and scrutiny applied to any provisional ballots during the board's review of them leading up to its decision on November 16, Painter, 941 N.E.2d at 791, is not based on state-law principles. Painter states that, under Ohio law, there is no exception for poll-worker error for ballots cast in the wrong precinct. Id. at 794. Therefore, at the time the Board considered the provisional ballots, Ohio law simply did not contemplate what standards to apply to ascertain poll-worker error in such a context, because poll-worker error was irrelevant to whether or not a miscast vote was counted. Rather, the state supreme court's instruction to the Board to limit its review of the 849 disputed ballots to the poll books, help-line records, and provisional-ballot envelopes is based on its own analysis of the district court's order and Plaintiffs' equal-protection claim. [20] It is not for the state court, however, to resolve the equal-protection claim previously filed and still pending in federal court. [21] Cf. Madej v. Briley, 371 F.3d 898, 899-900 (7th Cir.2004) (It is for the federal judiciary, not the [state], to determine the force of [the federal court's] orders.) (Easterbrook, J.). We also note that the federal constitutional claims pending in the district court and the subject of its November 22 order were not properly before the Ohio Supreme Court because they were not presented there. R.29-1 ( Painter Compl. ¶ 4) (While Relator Williams has appealed from [the federal district court's order], this action does not in any way challenge the [district court's] conclusion. Rather, it addresses exclusively the way in which that investigation should proceed under state election law. . . . (emphasis added)). For these reasons, we reject Defendants' arguments that we should defer to the Ohio Supreme Court's views on the substantial federal constitutional questions before us.