Secretary of State Jon Husted fired the two Democrats on the Montgomery County Board of Elections on Tuesday for rejecting his statewide early voting schedule, raising the stakes in a white-knuckle standoff between Republicans and Democrats over voting hours.

Husted, a Republican, dismissed Thomas Ritchie, Sr., and Dennis Lieberman in a letter Tuesday, saying they willfully violated state election law. Ritchie and Lieberman had voted to add weekend voting hours to those in Husted’s directive and refused to rescind their action as Husted’s office requested.

Husted wrote Tuesday, “Board members are free to express their discontent with any Directive or Advisory issued, but they cannot disobey them. Your dismissal is not about differing views; it is about you violating the law by not following a Directive. He concluded: “I find no pleasure in taking this action and I thank you for your service.”

Ritchie and Lieberman told the Dayton Daily News they weren’t surprised by the news and were meeting with attorneys to discuss legal action.

“He may have fired me, but he declared war on the Montgomery County electorate, on the people of our community,” Lieberman said. “We’re going back to the [Ken] Blackwell days.”

Blackwell was as an honorary co-chairman of the committee to re-elect George W. Bush at the same time he served as secretary of state in Ohio.

The executive committee of the Montgomery County Democratic Party has 15 days to meet and select replacements, and party Chairman Mark Owens said that process would start even as the party considers a lawsuit.

Husted said he would accept the party’s choices unless he found them to be incompetent.

“This board has a history of working together,” Owens said. “They’ve run elections well so I want to make sure we have more than competent people. Certainly they’re not going to have the experience Tom and Dennis had.”

Ritchie has been on the board for 17 years and Lieberman 10 years. Neither said he could remember another Ohio board of elections member removed during his or her term. Husted spokesman Matt McClellan said that observation may be factually accurate but former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, did not reappoint a Hardin County election board member after he failed to follow a directive.

Husted said his decision was based in part on findings by an independent hearing officer, Jon Allison, a Columbus attorney and former chief of staff for Republican Gov. Bob Taft. Allison recommended the removal of Ritchie and Lieberman in a report released Monday.

Husted and the two Democrats have clashed before. In 2009, Ritchie and Lieberman twice voted that Husted, a longtime Kettering resident, no longer resided in Montgomery County for voting purposes. Husted, who had just been elected to the Ohio Senate after serving as Ohio’s House Speaker, said he spent most of his time with his family in Upper Arlington but that his house in Kettering was his residence. The county elections board deadlocked along party lines on the residency question and then-Secretary of State Brunner broke the tie, ruling that Husted did not live in Montgomery County and his voter registration should be canceled.

Brunner’s ruling was overturned by the Ohio Supreme Court in October 2009.

Husted, who was planning to run for secretary of state at the time, said Brunner’s actions illustrated how a partisan secretary of state can destroy the credibility of the office.

In an interview last week, Husted said the residency dispute did not play into his decision to discipline Ritchie and Lieberman.

“That’s absurd that that had anything to do with it,” Husted said. “I don’t think about the two board members in question ever. I’ve moved on to try to do important positive things in life. I don’t hold grudges.”