Less than a day Ohioans before were scheduled to start early voting for this year's election, the U.S. Supreme Court voted along ideological lines to halt the procedure.

Early voting in Ohio was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but the Supreme Court voted 5-4 in favor of Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's request to shorten the voting schedule. According to SCOTUSblog, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas voted in favor of the shortened early voting time frame. Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor voted against the measure. As a result of the Supreme Court decision, early voting will begin a week later on Oct. 7.

"[Monday's] ruling validates what I have long said, elections in Ohio should be run by the same rules in every county and Ohioans should have the right to make those rules through their elected representatives. Ohioans can have confidence that it remains easy to vote and hard to cheat in our state," Husted said in a statement.

Husted added that he was "gratified" with the Supreme Court's decision and will maintain the 28-day early voting schedule, which includes two Saturdays and one Sunday. Husted's early voting schedule does not provide evening voting as most early voting days end at 5 p.m. while other dates have polls closing at 4 p.m. or earlier.

Supporters of the Sept. 30 early voting, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Ohio League of Women Voters, said Husted and the state's legislature violated federal election law and discriminated against African-American and low-income voters, who traditionally vote Democrat. Husted is a Republican.

"It is generally assumed -- and often borne out by actual vote counting -- that black, lower-income and homeless voters are the ones who most often take advantage of early voting, because they have less opportunity to do so on election day," SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston wrote. "Sunday voting is said to be very important to black voters, who are organized in groups to go to the polls for early voting after Sunday church services -- the so-called 'Souls to the Polls' campaign."

The American Civil Liberties Union's Voter Rights Project Director Dale Ho noted that thousands of Ohio residents depended on early voting.

"For many, it is their only chance to cast a ballot during an election. While [Monday's] order is not a final ruling on the merits, it will deprive many Ohioans of the opportunity to vote in the upcoming election as this case continues to make its way through the courts," Ho said.

"This is a real loss for Ohio voters, especially those who must use evenings, weekends and same-day voter registration to cast their ballot," ACLU of Ohio Legal Director Freda Levenson said in a statement, via Cleveland.com. "Early voting works-cutting popular days and hours is unnecessary and only hurts voters. To make it even worse, this last-minute decision will cause tremendous confusion among Ohioans about when and how they can vote."

The Supreme Court decision was only for this November's election and not for the 2016 election cycle.