With the election approaching, some corporate CEOS are pulling out all the stops to pressure their employees about what they do in the voting booth.

On The Ed Show Wednesday, Ed counted off the examples:

• Robert Murray of Murray Enterprises in Ohio earlier this summer forced miners to attend a Mitt Romney rally without pay, some miners have charged. The Federal Election Commission is probing the episode. Murray later went on Fox News and made the bizarre claim that President Obama wants to pass legislation that would pay for people's electric bills—provoking laughter even from his host.

• David Siegel, a Florida real-estate mogul who's building the biggest mansion in America, told employees in a company email they should vote for Romney,, adding that he'd lose motivation to work if Obama was re-elected.

• The Koch brothers sent thousands of employees a list of their favored candidates.

• And as Ed reported Monday, Richard Lacks of Lacks Enterprises, a Michigan auto-parts company, told employees in a recent email that they should “vote to improve your standard of living”by opposing Obama.

Of course, as Ed noted, it's hardly surprising these multi-millionaires would favor Romney. He wants to cut their taxes and deregulate their industries.

Robert Reich, an MSNBC contributor and former Labor Secretary, pointed out that taxes were lower on these CEOs in the for much of the 20th century. And he added:

These people seem to have no patriotic sense. I mean they are part of a society. They have some obligations to society. And yet they are saying, I don't want to be taxed, and if I'm taxed then I'm going to take it out on all of you, who have less job security than they've ever had, whose wages continue to drop, and whose homes are now worth 30% less than they were before.

Since last week's court ruling blocking Pennsylvania's voter ID law, the state has appeared to be in no rush to let voters know that the law is no longer in effect for the November election, and that an ID is no longer required. Both Lean Forward and The Rachel Maddow Show (see video above) have reported on the various ways in which the Republican state administration is dragging its heels.

But in terms of reducing confusion, the instructions that the state gives to county election boards are among the most crucial pieces of the puzzle. So what has Pennsylvania told the counties since last week?

The email below, obtained by Lean Forward, was sent by the office of Secretary of State Carol Aichele to county election administrators last Tuesday, the day of the court's ruling. It appears to fall far short of a clear declaration that photo ID is no longer required.

Instead, it tells local election officials they "MUST" (all caps in the original) ask voters for ID, but adds that voters "will not be required to vote by provisional ballot in the event that they do not show proof of identification"—a mixed message that appears to have the potential to cause confusion among county election administrators.

The email informs counties that an updated handout will be provided, but several county election directors that Lean Forward spoke to Tuesday said they were yet to receive the handout.

The court ruled that the ID requirement could remain in effect, but could not apply to this fall's election. The ruling said poll workers could still ask for ID this year, but that voters who lack it can still vote, and can't be made to cast a provisional ballot.

Here's the full email:

Good Afternoon,

Based on the order from Commonwealth Court today, the Department offers the following guidance as you prepare for the November election:

·         The Court’s order effectively provides for another “soft rollout” for the November election.  All voters MUST be asked to show proof of identification, but they will not be required to vote by provisional ballot in the event that they do not show proof of identification.  Please use handouts, as you did in the Primary, to explain Voter ID.  The updated handout will be provided tomorrow.

·         Please note that the “first-time voter” requirements that were in place prior to September 17, 2012 will apply in the November 6 General Election.  Therefore, those voters who are required under the Help America Vote Act and/or the Pennsylvania Election Code to provide identification will still be required to provide identification at the November 6 General Election.

·         The polling place posters that were handed out at the conference (or mailed) should not be posted at polling places, but rather stored for future use, if necessary.

·         If you have already ordered the updated provisional ballot receipts and did not retain old provisional ballot receipt stock, you may implement either of the following 2 strategies:

1.       Redact the 2^nd and 3^rd paragraphs of the new provisional ballot receipt, as shown in the attached example, which is entitled Provisional Ballot Receipt_w.redaction.

2.       Detach the provisional ballot receipt from the bar-coded portion of provisional ballot label and hand out to each voter the attached receipt, which is entitled Provisional Ballot Receipt_OLD TYPE.

·         The new voter registration and absentee ballot applications can still be utilized.  The Court’s order DOES NOT enjoin or otherwise alter the requirements of Act 18 relating to absentee balloting.  The Act 18 proof of identification requirements for absentee voters remain in effect.

A spokesman for the Secretary of State's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment as to whether and when additional guidance would be provided to the counties.

Office of the Ohio Secretary of State

Secretary of State Jon Husted

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has announced he'll appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court last week's court ruling that restored full early voting rights for all Ohioans. 

“This is an unprecedented intrusion by the federal courts into how states run elections," Husted, a Republican, said in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, "and because of its impact on all 50 states as to who and how elections will be run in America we are asking the Supreme Court to step in and allow Ohioans to run Ohio elections.

On Friday, a three-judge panel ruled that Ohio's plan to scrap the last three days of early voting before the November 6 election for everyone except military service-members violated the Constitution's equal protection clause. The Obama campaign had challenged the plan in a lawsuit.

Rick Hasen, a prominent election-law expert, wrote Friday that he was "surprised" by the Appeals Court ruling, and that it "may not survive further review ... should Ohio choose to appeal."

A study released Monday by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights found that in 2008 in Cuyahoga County—Ohio's most populous—black voters used this period at 26 times the rate of white voters. Many African-Americans vote en masse after attending church the Sunday before the election.

A Michigan CEO is giving his employees a little friendly advice: Vote Romney, or you'll end up paying for it.

In a letter to company workers, Richard Lacks, who runs auto parts supplier Lacks Enterprises, advised them to “vote to improve your standard of living” by opposing President Obama.

Obama's healthcare overhaul, Lacks claimed, would lead to higher health insurance costs for the firm. “As employees, you will receive no additional direct benefit other than you will have to pay for it,” he added.

Lacks continued: “The talk of additional tax increases by the administration, if re-elected, will have an additional negative impact on the organization. It is always important to remember the more government takes the less there will be available to spread around to the working people of this company."

The letter was leaked to MILive.com.

On The Ed Show Monday, Ed Schultz filled viewers in on the real kicker: In that same letter, Lacks informed employees they'd be getting their sixth bonus on 3 years. Though a company spokesman told MILive.com that the firm didn't benefit directly from the auto bailout pushed by the Obama administration and opposed by Romney, Ed noted that's not the full story. G.M. and Chrysler are among Lacks's top customers, and without the bailout, they might not exist today. So it's fair to say that Obama's bailout has played a pretty big role in the firm's success these last few years.

Tom Mihalek / REUTERS

Barring a reversal, Pennsylvania voters won’t be required to produce a photo ID at the polls next month, thanks to a judge’s ruling this morning. But voting-rights groups say they’re concerned the state may continue with a campaign telling voters they do need ID, potentially causing confusion and keeping some voters from the polls.

“That is the big question: Will the state continue to run advertising  saying that people need ID?” Witold Walczak, a lawyer with the ACLU of Pennsylvania, told Lean Forward. “Because that’s false.”

Judge Robert Simpson ruled Tuesday morning that the state must continue with its “soft rollout” of the voter ID law. That means poll workers can ask voters for ID, but can’t turn them away, or force them to cast provisional ballots, for not producing one.

But the ruling did not address the state’s $5 million advertising campaign telling voters that they’ll need an ID to vote. One TV ad that last month was running across the state says: “To vote in Pennsylvania on Election Day, you need an acceptable photo ID with a valid expiration date,” and tells voters to “show it.”

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, Secretary of State Carol Aichele said the ad campaign would go on. “We will continue our education and outreach efforts, as directed by the judge in his order, to let Pennsylvanians know the voter ID law is still on track to be fully implemented for future elections, and we urge all registered voters to make sure they have acceptable ID," said Aichele.

Asked for clarification, Aichele spokesman Matthew Keeler told Lean Forward, via email: "We are looking into the media campaign to transition and update information and ads to continue to educate voters and prepare for election day."

And Walczak told Lean Forward he's feeling "cautiously optimistic" after a Tuesday afternoon conversation with state lawyers.

Still, supporters of the law are claiming that changing the campaign would be impractical. “It’s already in the works,” said Steve Miskin, a spokesman for Rep. Mike Turzai, a Republican, told Lean Forward. “How do you just pull it back?”

But voting-rights advocates say if the state doesn’t do so, the result could be widespread confusion, leading some voters to stay away from then polls because they wrongly believe they need ID.

"There is a concern on our side about the possibility of misinformation going out," David Gersch, a lawyer for civil-rights groups challenging the law, told reporters on a conference call. If there’s confusion about whether an ID is needed, he added, “folks may just stay home.” 

Gersch and other voting-rights lawyers on the case said they might pursue further legal action if the state won’t assure them it’ll change the ad campaign, though they’re hopeful that won’t be necessary.

“We’d like to think that at the end of the day, they’re not going to be interested in having ads and educational materials out there that are incorrect,” Gersch said.

In one sign that the state is tweaking its campaign, before Tuesday's ruling the Pennsylvania elections website read: “Voters are required to show an acceptable photo ID before casting their ballot." It now says:"Voters will be asked, but not required, to show an acceptable photo ID on Election Day."

Will you, or will someone you know, be affected by voter ID laws this November? Email us at LeanForwardEditors@msnbc.com with your story.

Michael Perez / AP

In a decision being cheered by voting-rights advocates, a judge has issued a preliminary injunction against Pennsylvania's controversial voter ID law.

Judge Robert Simpson ruled that poll workers can ask voters for ID, but they cannot turn away voters who do not have one. Nor can such voters be forced to cast a provisional ballot.

The ruling did not strike down the law, it merely ensured that the law won't be in effect for this fall's election.

“We are very glad voters will not be turned away from the polls this November if they do not have an ID,” said Judith Browne Dianis of the Advancement Project, which helped bring the case, in a statement.

Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice was more effusive. “Today’s decision is a clear victory for Pennsylvania voters and the cause of voting rights across the country," Weiser said in a statement.

State election officials had last week made modifications to the law in an effort to convince the judge not to block it. But Simpson wrote: “I cannot conclude the proposed changes cure the deficiency in liberal access [to ID's] identified by the Supreme Court.”

But despite the victory, some concerns remain. Voting-rights advocates expressed dissatisfaction that poll workers will still be allowed to ask for ID, potentially causing confusion. “This injunction serves as a mere Band-Aid for law’s inherent problems, not an effective remedy,” said Penda Hair of the Advancement Project.

And some said the state's $5 million ad campaign informing voters that they'll need ID has already sown confusion. "It's our hope that the state will revise its public education," Benjamin Geffen, a lawyer with the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, another group that helped bring the case, told Lean Forward.

Some Republican supporters of the law claimed a partial victory, citing the fact that, as it stands, the law will be in effect for future elections. "It's still a victory for election integrity, because ultimately every voter will need to have a photo ID," Steve Miskin, a spokesman for State Rep. Mike Turzai, told Lean Forward. Turzai provoked anger among voting rights supporters when he told a group of fellow Republicans in June that the law would "allow" Mitt Romney to win Pennsylvania this fall.

The legal fight may still not be over. The judge's ruling can be appealed to the state's Supreme Court.

Office of the Ohio Secretary of State

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted

A controversial voter ID law in Pennsylvania. A flawed bid to remove non-citizens from the voting rolls in Florida. The elimination of the last three days of early voting in Ohio.

As if all that wasn’t enough to worry about, voting rights advocates say they’re concerned about yet another development that could disenfranchise legitimate voters—one which has largely flown under the radar, despite its potential to affect the presidential race: A reduction of nearly half a million in the number of Ohio’s registered voters since 2008—seemingly concentrated in populous, Democratic-leaning areas—amid an aggressive effort by the state’s Republican leadership to pare the rolls.

The Advancement Project, a leading voting-rights group, has filed public records requests with Ohio’s counties to look into whether the process used to remove names from the rolls was legal, the group’s co-director, Penda Hair, told Lean Forward. “We are definitely concerned,” she said.

Diana Kasdan, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice, which supports voting rights, said her group, too, is “definitely taking a look at” the issue.

Subodh Chandra, a Democratic civil-rights lawyer based in Cleveland, was blunter. “What seems to be clear is that they’re making an effort to remove as many people from the rolls as possible before the presidential elections,” he said.

The Buckeye State is shaping up once again to be perhaps the single key battleground in the presidential race. But the state’s voting rolls have shrunk from 8.3 million on Election Day 2008 to 7.8 million at the start of September 2012, according to an analysis by the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, based on data from the Secretary of State’s office and the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s a decline of nearly 6 percent at a time when Ohio’s population, like that of most states, appears to be growing slightly. In 2004, President Bush won Ohio, and with it the election, but just 119,000 votes.

In the state’s most populous county, Cuyahoga, which includes Cleveland, the rolls have shrunk by nearly 20 percent, almost twice as large a percentage decline as any other county has seen. Thirty-five percent of Cuyahoga County residents are black or Hispanic, and President Obama won 70 percent of the vote there in 2008.

The reductions come on the heels of a concerted effort by Jon Husted (pictured), Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State, to pare the state’s voting rolls. Husted already has attracted the ire of voting-rights groups and Democrats after at first approving a plan that would have allowed for longer early voting hours in GOP-leaning counties than in Democratic ones (he later backed down), then fighting an effort to restore the last three days of early voting, and firing two Democratic elections officials who stood up to him on the issue. Last month, Husted was scheduled to speak to the Tea Party group True the Vote, which has been widely accused of using intimidating tactics to suppress voting, before pulling out at the last minute. And he recently told a different Tea Party group that he hoped to see new voter ID measures implemented next year.

Federal law requires that states take steps to maintain accurate voting rolls, and even voting-rights groups acknowledge the importance of doing so. Since taking office in 2011, Husted has made cleaning up the rolls “a top priority of his administration,” his office said in a legal filing (pdf) made last week, in response to a lawsuit by True the Vote and another conservative group, aimed at forcing him to conduct a more aggressive purge.

Husted’s office has improved the process by which the state receives information on deceased voters, leading to the removal of 153,000 names from the rolls, according to a spokesman, Matthew McClellan. The office also has worked to eliminate duplicates, which has accounted for “hundreds of thousands” more removals, McClellan said. In addition, it has begun working with the Ohio DMV to improve the accuracy of the information in its database. And it asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for access to an immigration database which could have been used to pare the rolls on the basis of citizenship, but was denied. (After its own request was denied, Florida instead used a flawed state DMV database to conduct a controversial citizenship-based purge. McClellan said Ohio has not conducted a citizenship-based purge.)

“The rolls in Ohio are in the best shape that they’ve been in for years,” McClellan said.

In Cuyahoga County, many of the roughly 214,000 removals came in the summer of 2011, when the county took off around 100,000 voters who hadn’t voted in several years and hadn’t responded to a 2007 mailing. At that time, the county had discovered it had more people on the rolls than it had citizens of voting age. Another 93,000 were duplicates, Jane Platten, the county’s elections director, told Lean Forward.

Much of the impetus for the removal efforts came from the state, Platten added. “The state’s been real aggressive on making sure counties keep up with that,” she said.

But voting-rights advocates say there’s been little information about the process by which removals have been made across the state, raising concerns that legitimate voters could have been knocked off the rolls, with little time left before the election to find out and fix the problem.

Chandra singled out the removals of dead voters as a particular concern. “Because there’s no transparency, it’s hard to know whether or not they are removing people who are truly dead and should have been removed, or whether they are taking a hatchet-type approach,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be a great expression of care about not making mistakes.”

“I’m concerned about the reasons for doing it this close to an election, and whether this is a systematic removal that would be prohibited within 90 days,” said Hair, noting that states are banned under federal law from conducting  large-scale purges within 90 days of an election. She added:  “If we find something that we believe is a serious violation that’s affecting a large number of people,” there’s a “strong possibility” the group will file a lawsuit.

McClellan said the state goes through “multiple steps” to ensure that legitimate voters aren’t knocked off. But, perhaps given Husted’s record as a less-than-zealous defender of voting rights, that’s doing little to ease some concerns.

“If the Secretary’s voter purge winds up deciding the election,” said Chandra, “then that will undermine Ohioans and all Americans confidence in our democracy.” 

Mitt Romney has responded at length to the furor over his comments at a fundraiser about the 47 percent of Americans who pay no federal income tax and see themselves as "victims." "My job is not to worry about those people," Romney said in the video.

The comments were "not elegantly stated," and were spoken "off the cuff," Romney acknowledged Monday night in a hastily convened press availability with reporters. But he also doubled down on the outlook he espoused in the video, charging that "the president's approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes."

The comments from the fundraiser were recorded surreptitiously, and obtained by David Corn of the liberal magazine Mother Jones. Corn appeared Monday night on Hardball and The Rachel Maddow Show, where he revealed further details about the video.

Here are Romney's extended comments about the controversy tonight, footage of which was broadcast on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell (you can watch them above):

I'm talking about the political process of drawing people into my campaign. Of course, individuals are going to take more responsibility for their life. My campaign is about helping people take responsibility, and becoming employed again, particularly those that done have work. This whole campaign is focused on getting people jobs again, putting people back to work. This is ultimately a question about direction for the country. Do you believe in a government-centered society, that provides more and more benefits? Or do you believe instead in a free enterprise society where people are able how to pursue their dreams? I believe the latter will help more people get good jobs. This is a campaign, fundamentally, about to help the middle class in America, and how to bring people out of poverty into the middle class. And we've seen the results of the last three, four years, and it has not worked. My approach will get 12 million new jobs and rising take-home pay.

Asked again about the comments, and whether he was giving a different message to funders than to ordinary voters, Romney replied:

It was not elegantly stated, let me put it that way. I was speaking off the cuff, in response to a question, and I'm sure I could state it more clearly and in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that. And so I'm sure I'll point that out as time goes on. But we don't even have the question given the snippet there, or the full response. And I hope the person who has the video will put out the full material. But it's a message which I'm gonna carry, which is, look, the president's approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes, because frankly my discussion about lowering taxes isn't as attractive to them, and therefore I'm not likely to draw them into my campaign as effectively as those who are in  the middle. This is really a discussion about the political process of winning an election. And of course I want to help all Americans, all Americans have a bright and prosperous future. And I'm convinced that the president's approach has not done that.

...

This is the same message that I give to people, which is that we have a very different approach, the president and I, between a government-dominated society and a society driven by free people pursuing their dreams.

"I think what we just saw was part one of Mitt Romney's concession speech of defeat in this campaign," said O'Donnell. "And we will see the rest on election night."

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has emerged lately as a bete noir for voting-rights advocates. Husted, a Republican, at first tried to allow extended voting hours for GOP-leaning counties but not for Democratic ones—before backing down under pressure and declaring there would be no early extended voting for anyone. He's now appealing a judge's ruling requiring him to reverse course. 

But for one extreme voter suppression group, Husted isn't going far enough. It's teaming up with a controversial former Bush administration Justice Department official to try to force Husted to do even more to make it harder to vote.

In late August, True the Vote, a Tea Party-affiliated group that aims to root out voter fraud by placing poll watchers at polling places around the country, sued Husted in federal court in Ohio (pdf), charging that he's failed to maintain accurate voter registration lists as required by law. Essentially, True the Vote—along with Judicial Watch, a prominent Washington-based conservative activist group which it partnered with on the lawsuit—wants a judge to force Husted to conduct a purge of the rolls. A controversial purge conducted in Florida could disenfranchise more than 35,000 eligible voters, voting-rights advocates estimate.

According to the complaint, True the Vote "trains volunteers to review voter lists" in order to identify those it believes to be illegitimate. "Because the State of Ohio has failed to satisfy its voter list maintenance obligations, the voter lists that True the Vote obtained from the State of Ohio are inaccurate and out of date, making it more difficult for True the Vote to use these lists in furtherance of its mission," the complaint adds.  

Christian Adams, a former Bush Justice Department official who has emerged as a key advocate of voting restrictions, is listed in the lawsuit as "of counsel." 

The involvement of True the Vote, Judicial Watch, and Adams in pushing for a purge of the Ohio voter rolls underlines how the GOP push to make voting harder is a national effort that's receiving support from conservative movement leaders.

Husted's office has not filed a response to the lawsuit. In March, in response to a letter from Judicial Watch, Husted's chief legal counsel wrote that Husted and his colleagues "share your concerns about the accuracy of our voting lists." And this month a spokesman for Husted told the AP that he has removed more than 19,000 deceased voters and hundreds of thousands of duplicates in the 20 months since he took office.

As recently as late August, True the Vote and Husted appeared to be friendly. The Secretary of State was scheduled to appear as a featured speaker at the the group's Ohio summit August 25 but pulled out at the last minute, after True the Vote became the target of a barrage of negative publicity. Less than a week later, True the Vote joined Judicial Watch in suing Husted in an effort to force him to purge the rolls. 

True the Vote has a record of using intimidating tactics at disproportionately minority polling places. In 2010, the group reportedly flooded predominantly African-American polling places with poll-watchers, mostly older, white, and male. “So many voters and election workers complained about the aggressive tactics and general atmosphere of intimidation at those sites that the US Justice Department said it would send in federal observers,” Rachel Maddow explained last month (see video above). Maddow added that one leader of the group told a national summit that the effect of installing so many poll-watchers at polling places was intended to be “like driving and seeing the police following you.”

A lengthy New York Times report published online Sunday evening delves deeper into True the Vote's activities.

Adams, who has a history of conservative activism, was hired into a career position at the Justice Department under a politicized process. In the waning days of the Bush administration, Adams filed a controversial DoJ lawsuit against the "New Black Panther Party," alleging voter intimidation in relation to an Election Day 2008 incident in which two members of the group were filmed brandishing nightsticks at a Philadelphia polling place. Adams claimed that the Obama administration failed to file charges out of an unwillingness to alienate a political ally. In fact, the Bush Justice Department first declined to file charges in the case, and under Obama, DoJ obtained an injunction against the stick-wielder. Adams currently is a lawyer at the Election Law Center, which supports efforts to restrict voting and describes itself on its website as "more red than the ivory tower." He is the author of the 2011 book, Injustice: Exposing the Racial agenda of the Obama Justrice Department.

Mitt Romney has already been roundly criticized—and not just by liberals—for his politicized response to the Libyan crisis, in which he falsely accused the Obama administration of "sympathizing" with the Libyan attackers.

But as Ezra Klein pointed out while guest hosting The Ed Show Wednesday, it wasn't just that Romney got the facts wrong. The notion that the U.S. embassy in Egypt betrayed American values by putting out a statement condemning religious bigotry would have come as news to the Bush administration. Here's what President Bush's State Department spokesman said in response to the 2006 Danish cartoons that lampooned the Prophet Muhammed and sparked violent protests by Muslims around the world: 

Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-semitic images ... as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief.

As The New York Times reported at the time, "a core mission of [the Bush administration's] foreign policy is to emphasize respect for Islam in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Indeed, as Klein went on to note, in May 2008, President Bush apologized to Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki after an American solider went on a shooting spree in Iraq. "He apologized for that, in the sense that he said that we take it very seriously, we were concerned about the reaction, we wanted them to know that the president knew that this was wrong..." White House press secretary Dana Perino said at the time.

In addition to his rash statement on the Libyan crisis, of course, Romney has falsely accused Obama of going on an "apology tour," seeking forgiveness from world leaders. Funny, there's no record of Romney raising a peep.

Michael Morley

Last month, a coalition of military groups intervened in a major voting-rights case in Ohio on the side of Republican officials—helping the GOP to make the false charge that the Obama campaign is working to suppress the military vote. The coalition has been described in media reports as above the partisan fray. But according to one key participant, it was organized by a Washington-based Republican lawyer and political operative who has helped launch several other efforts to intervene in voting cases in swing states across the country, always to the benefit of the GOP. And its main point of contact is a Washington lobbyist and former Republican Senate aide who runs a conservative advocacy group.

The involvement of national-level Republicans highlights how crucial the bid to reduce early voting in Ohio is to the party’s—and Mitt Romney’s—hopes this fall.

Earlier this summer, the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee sued the state of Ohio over a Republican-backed law that ended early voting in the three days before Election Day for everyone except members of the military, making it harder for hundreds of thousands of Ohioans—disproportionately African-Americans, research suggests—to vote. Not long afterwards, a coalition of 15 military groups filed documents (pdf) asking to intervene in the lawsuit on the side of the defendant, Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted. The military groups sought “to defend the fundamental constitutional right to vote of members of the U.S. Armed Forces,” according to their brief.

A judge ruled late last month in favor of the Obama campaign, ordering Husted to direct local election boards to prepare to allow early voting for everyone. Husted—joined by the coalition of military groups—is appealing the ruling.

The military coalition has largely escaped scrutiny, even though it appears to have been organized as part of a concerted effort to lend support to Republicans in voting cases—some, as in Ohio, involving efforts to restrict voting rights—in swing states across the country.

The coalition—made up of volunteer groups like the U.S. Army Association, the U.S. Navy Association, and the National Guard Association—was assembled by Michael Morley, a Republican lawyer and political operative, according to Bob Carey, who serves as a point of contact for the coalition. “Michael Morley approached these organizations and put it together himself,” Carey told Lean Forward.

Morley, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment via phone and email and whose name does not appear on the coalition's court filing, served in the Bush administration as a special assistant to the Army General Counsel. He's also a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA)—a group of GOP election lawyers that has in the past worked to spread concern over voter fraud despite little evidence that such fraud exists— according to the RNLA's website. And he appears to have carved out a niche this year launching legal efforts to intervene in voting disputes in swing states, on behalf of Republicans seeking to limit voting rights or otherwise advantage the party's candidates. Among the recent initiatives he's been involved in:

• In May, Morley filed a motion seeking to intervene in a lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s controversial Republican-backed voter ID law. He was representing a group of voters who backed the law, saying they were seeking to protect their own votes from being diluted by fraudulent voting.

• In June, Morley filed a similar motion (pdf) on behalf of Wisconsin voters, opposing a lawsuit that challenged a voter ID law pushed by Gov. Scott Walker and state Republicans.

• Last month, Morley represented a group of Iowa voters seeking to knock Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson off the ballot in that state. Johnson, who ran in the Republican presidential primary, could draw crucial votes away from Mitt Romney this fall.

WATCH RACHEL MADDOW'S SEGMENT MONDAY NIGHT ON THE NATIONWIDE GOP WAR ON VOTING:

Carey, the coalition's point of contact, is himself a well-connected Washington lobbyist and former aide to Republican senators Spencer Abraham and George Allen, who has served as director of a Defense Department program that helps military and overseas voters to cast ballots. In addition to his work at a lobbying firm founded by Abraham, Carey currently helps run the National Defense Committee, a conservative military advocacy group.

The involvement of the military coalition has lent crucial backing to the Republican charge that the Obama campaign's lawsuit seeks to suppress the military vote, which tends to skew Republican. Pete Hegseth, a conservative activist and former Army captain who ran unsuccessfully this year for the Republican Senate nomination in Minnesota appeared last month on Fox News on behalf of the coalition to stoke concern over the Obama campaign’s lawsuit. “It’s so shamefully political, what they’re doing,” Hegseth said of the suit. Mitt Romney’s campaign accused Obama of seeking to “undermine” military voting rights, and Ohio GOP Senate candidate Josh Mandel claimed the president was “trying to suppress the military vote.”

News reports and independent fact-checkers have been quick to label those charges false: The Democrats’ lawsuit asks that early voting hours be extended for everyone, leaving military voters unaffected. 

Morley isn’t the only Beltway Republican lawyer involved with the Ohio effort. As Rachel Maddow reported Monday, citing the liberal Ohio blog Plunderbund, Husted has been getting help from Washington-based William Consovoy, who also has been involved this year in legal bids to curtail voting rights in Florida and Alabama.

In Ohio, the military coalition’s brief—which appears to have been drawn up quickly; it misspells the name of Judge Peter Economus—argues that although Democrats weren’t asking for early voting days for service-members to be cut, their lawsuit nonetheless threatened military voting rights because it sought to have special consideration for the military declared unconstitutional, setting a precedent that could lead to such consideration being banned in the future.

“Although the relief Plaintiffs seek is an overall extension of Ohio’s early voting period, the means through which Plaintiffs are attempting to attain it—a ruling that it is arbitrary and unconstitutional to grant extra time for early voting solely to military voters and overseas citizens—is both legally inappropriate and squarely contrary to the legal interests and constitutional rights of Intervenors, their members, and the courageous men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces,” the coalition’s brief argued.

"The entirety of federal and Ohio law on military voting is based around differentiating military voters and giving them more time," Carey told Lean Forward. 

And in his own interview with Lean Forward, Hegseth called “offensive” the lawsuit’s claim that giving the military special voting accommodations is arbitrary.

But by dismissing the Obama campaign’s lawsuit, an appeals court could nonetheless ensure that civilians are unable to vote in the three days before the election, throwing up a hurdle in front of hundreds of thousands of Ohio voters who have used those days in past years. And not all of the coalition’s members appear to be on board with that outcome.

“We have no problem at all if every citizen has full early voting rights,” John Goheen, a spokesman for the National Guard Association told Lean Forward. “We just want to make sure that members of the military have full rights to vote.”

Asked why his group was involved in an effort that could reduce early voting for millions, Goheen was philosophical.

“When these things start, you don’t know where they're really headed,” he said. “Like any motion which a whole lot of organizations have signed on to, we don’t necessarily agree with every word choice.”

Moments after Paul Ryan's speech, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin got into a fiesty and heated exchange with the MSNBC panel. Walker defended Ryan's misleading claim that Obama failed to save a Wisconsin auto plant, and even appeared to claim that for Wisconsin workers, the Obama administration's auto bailout hasn't been a success. 

As you can guess, Rachel, Ed, Al and company didn't let him off the hook. Watch: