WASHINGTON — Wisconsin's controversial election is back on for Tuesday and voters will get no extension on the deadline to return absentee ballots despite the coronavirus crisis, thanks to two top courts that sided with Republicans on Monday.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, issued an executive order Monday afternoon postponing the election to June 9, citing the public health risk. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court hours later overturned the governor, siding with the Republican-controlled legislature that had appealed his order.
Later in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wisconsin Republicans on a separate issue, voting 5-to-4 along ideological lines to overturn a lower federal court's decision to extend the deadline for absentee balloting.
Election officials have faced an unprecedented crush of requests for absentee ballots from voters looking to avoid the polls during the pandemic, so a federal judge Thursday granted voters and officials an extra week to cast ballots and have them counted.
But the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that extension, meaning that absentee ballots received after 8 p.m. Tuesday will no longer be accepted. The four dissenting justices, all on the court's liberal wing, said the decision will result in the "massive disenfranchisement" of tens of thousands of voters who did not want to show up in person because of the spread of the coronavirus, but could not cast their absentee ballots in time.
"The question here is whether tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens can vote safely in the midst of a pandemic," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the dissenters. By cutting off the absentee ballot extension, she wrote, the court's decision forces voters to choose between endangering their safety by showing up in person, or losing their right to vote.
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The chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wikler, warned of even graver consequences, saying the decision to force the election to proceed during the epidemic will "disenfranchise untold thousands of Wisconsin voters and consign an unknown number of Wisconsinites to their deaths."
The courts' action, just hours after the governor called off the election and not long before polls are to open Tuesday morning, is the latest twist in the only major election scheduled for this month after every other state postponed theirs in response to the coronavirus crisis.
Election officials had been taking elaborate preparations to try to protect public health while offering residents a chance to vote at polling places Tuesday and Republican legislative leaders told them to keep going even after the governor issued his order, arguing it would not stand up in court.
The election includes not only a primary for Democratic presidential nomination between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, but general elections for hundreds of down-ballot offices, including a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The state court is officially non-partisan but breaks down into clear ideological camps. The court's two liberal justices dissented while four conservative ones joined the majority. The conservative incumbent up for re-election Tuesday abstained from the decision.
In a joint statement, Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, both Republicans, praised the court's ruling.
"The state's highest court as spoken: the governor can't unilaterally move the date of the election," they said.
Wisconsin GOP Chair Andrew Hitt said changing the election because of the outbreak would quickly "lead us down a slippery slope that erodes our democracy."
"The confusion and time wasted as a result of these multiple lawsuits when we should have all been solely focused on preparing for a challenging election is truly sad and unfortunate," he said.
Evers, who had resisted rescheduling the election until recent days, called decisions a "shame."
"Tomorrow in Wisconsin, thousands will wake up and have to choose between exercising their right to vote and staying healthy and safe," the governor said in a statement. "In this time of historic crisis, it is a shame that two branches of government in this state chose to pass the buck instead of taking responsibility for the health and safety of the people we were elected to serve.”
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April 07, 2020 at 07:11AM
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The Wisconsin election is back on after courts rule in GOP favor - NBC News
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