WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to help Ohio Democrats keep Republicans from challenging voters inside state polls.
Democrats allege Republicans are trying to suppress the vote in minority districts in Ohio, a state that could determine the presidential outcome.
Justice John Paul Stevens, who oversees Ohio, acted on his own without referring the Democrats' request to the full court for a vote.
Two federal judges in Cincinnati and Akron, Ohio, had blocked Republican challengers from entering the polls, despite a state law that allows them to do so.
However, a federal appeals court panel late Monday issued a stay of both judges' injunctions.
Democrats then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the appeals court stay, and Stevens denied their requests before dawn on Election Day.
The Ohio Supreme Court has already interpreted state law as allowing no more than one challenger from each party inside a polling place.
