The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Ohio election officials do not have to provide absentee ballots to inmates arrested after the deadline to request a ballot.

Police arrested Mays and Nelson Sr. the weekend before Election Day 2018. They sued Ohio’s Secretary of State for access to absentee ballots after they could not afford bail and saw no other way to vote. The lawsuit challenged Ohio’s “disparate treatment of hospital-confined and jail-confined electors,” as well as Ohio’s absentee ballot request deadline as applied to unexpectedly jailed voters.

Under current law, registered votes in Ohio have three options to vote. They may vote in person, either on Election Day or during the early voting period at each county’s designated early voting center. Additionally, any voter may vote absentee, provided that they request an absentee ballot three days before Election Day, by noon. Voters who personally, or whose minor children, are hospitalized due to an unforeseen accident or medical emergency after the deadline may request an absentee ballot until 3 PM on Election Day.

The court found that election boards would be overburdened and unable to accomplish their many tasks if they also had to process late absentee requests from jail-confined voters. Jail-confined voters are differently situated from hospital-confined voters because of their confinement location. Board staff would have to plan in advance to locate the elector in jail, pass through the jail’s security, and verify that the voter will be present in jail when they arrive. This advance planning would take up time and is unnecessary for hospital-confined electors.

The court concluded that, because the plaintiffs had four weeks before their arrests to vote early and over 10 months prior to request an absentee ballot, Ohio election officials did not have to provide absentee ballots after the deadline.

The court found that Ohio’s deadline for requesting absentee ballots is constitutional because “it imposes only a minimal burden on Plaintiffs’ right to vote and the same state interests from Plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim justify that burden.” Individuals who fail to vote early “cannot blame Ohio law for their inability to vote; they must blame ‘their own failure to take timely steps to effect their enrollment.'”