FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Good lord, finagling never sleeps....

The directive, issued Friday, lays out the requirements for submitting a provisional ballot. The directive includes a form which puts the burden on the voter to correctly record the form of ID provided to election officials. Husted also instructed election officials that if the form is not filled out correctly by a voter, the ballot should not be counted.

In other words, not only does the state get to put a pain in the voter's ass about the ID, the voter also now has to function as his own election official and as a de facto recording secretary, or his vote doesn't count.

According to a lawsuit filed late Friday by voting rights advocates, this is "contrary to a court decision on provisional ballots a week ago and contrary to statements made by attorneys for Husted at an Oct. 24 court hearing." Indeed, it also appears directly contrary to Ohio law. From the lawsuit:

Ohio Rev. Code § 3505.181(B)(6) provides that, once a voter casting a provisional ballot proffers identification, "the appropriate local election official shall record the type of identification provided, the social security number information, the fact that the affirmation was executed, or the fact that the individual declined to execute such an affirmation and include that information with the transmission of the ballot . . . ."

The law "ensures that any questions regarding a voter's identification are resolved on the spot or, consistent with due process, the voter is informed that he or she needs to provide additional information to the board of elections. This protects the integrity of the voting process, and provides a reasonable opportunity to resolve deficiencies."

Jon Husted hasn't been merely a clumsy partisan (see: Harris, Katherine), and he hasn't simply been a bureaucratic weasel, although he undeniably has been one of those. He has actively, publicly defied the courts, over and over again. Purely out of partisan spite, Husted is draining of public credibility whatever the official result of the election in Ohio turns out to be. This isn't partisan vandalism. It's partisan arson. The electoral process cannot stand much more of this. It's time for a judge to bring this guy to heel.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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