Fired Montgomery County Board of Elections members Dennis Lieberman and Tom Ritchie Sr. will not learn until Oct. 23 — exactly two weeks before Election Day — whether they will win their jobs back via a federal wrongful termination lawsuit.

The pair of Democrats sued Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted after he removed them from office Aug. 28. On Friday, lawyers for the two sides called 10 witnesses in a nearly eight-hour hearing before Judge Water Rice in U.S. District Court. Rice called for both sides to file legal briefs in the coming weeks and scheduled his decision for Oct. 23, a date he called “perilously close” to Election Day.

“I think today was a good day for us,” Ritchie said. “We had our day in court. And I think we’re in good hands. I’m happy to have a day in front of a neutral person who will make a fair decision.”

Attorneys for Husted declined comment after the hearing.

A handful of legal points dominated the testimony. Lieberman and Ritchie continued to argue that Husted’s Aug. 15 directive setting weekdays only as “regular business hours” for county boards of election constituted the minimum hours that were allowed, but did not preclude them from adding weekend early voting hours. It was the Aug. 17 vote by Lieberman and Ritchie to add those hours that led Husted to remove them.

Ohio Director of Elections Matt Damschroder, who reports to Husted, testified Friday that the directive was clear in allowing only weekday early voting, and that Lieberman and Ritchie made a “willful decision” to violate the directive.

Lieberman said he believed Husted’s directive would be discriminatory, citing voting research that weekend voting was used most by African-Americans. He pointed out that the same oath that requires him to enforce Husted’s directives also mandates that he uphold the Constitution.

A federal judge in Columbus did rule this month that Ohio’s law prohibiting in-person voting on the final three days before the election is unconstitutional. State officials are appealing that ruling.

On Aug. 17, the Democrats and Republicans on the Montgomery County BOE tied 2-2 on Lieberman’s motion to keep weekend voting hours. The way such ties are broken was another key argument Friday.

Several election officials called by the plaintiffs testified that the Ohio Election Officials Manual spells out that procedure — in the case of a tie, both sides submit position papers within 14 days to the secretary of state, who reviews the papers and casts the tie vote.

Immediately after the tie vote, Montgomery County officials agreed to send position papers to Husted within five days. But Husted broke the tie and suspended Lieberman and Ritchie later that day.

Damschroder testified that the Ohio Supreme Court has allowed for the process to be truncated in the past, and listed several occasions where Husted or his Democratic predecessor, Jennifer Brunner, broke ties quickly without waiting for position papers. David Greer, attorney for the BOE members, pointed out ways that he said most of those cases are different from this one.

Judge Rice also took exception when attorneys for Husted compared the 2008 dismissal of a Hardin County BOE member to the current case, saying he couldn’t see how the two cases were analogous.

Several election officials, including Lieberman and Ritchie’s new replacements, Rhine McLin and John Doll, testified about the steep learning curve new BOE members face, and made the case for having experienced hands in place for a presidential election. Greene County BOE Deputy Director Llyn McCoy testified that it often takes “several months” for new board member to get up to speed, saying that is a concern with the Nov. 6 election 45 days away.