WASHINGTON _ The Supreme Court's five Republican appointees came to the aid of Wisconsin's Republican leaders Monday and blocked a judge's order that would given voters an extra week to submit their ballots by mail.
By a 5-4 vote, the justices granted an emergency appeal from GOP lawyers on the eve of Tuesday's election.
In an unsigned opinion for the court's five conservatives, the justices said a federal judge had gone too far by extending the time for counting absentee ballots. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by the other Democratic appointees, dissented.
The high court's order came at the end of the day in which Wisconsin's governor moved to postpone the election, only to be overruled by the state supreme court.
Wisconsin, a closely divided battleground, is the first state to hold major elections under the threat of the coronavirus. And its legal scramble over voting deadlines may foreshadow what's to come this fall if the virus remains a daily threat.
Republicans who control the state Legislature refused to postpone Tuesday's election, which includes a high-profile reelection fight over a conservative justice on the state Supreme Court.
Last week, Wisconsin's governor issued a stay-at-home order, and Democratic lawyers then went to court seeking to postpone the election or allow more time for voters to receive and submit absentee ballots. At least 27,000 voters would not receive their absentee ballot by Tuesday, according to the Wisconsin Election Commission.
U.S. District Judge William Conley refused to postpone the April 7 election, but he ordered the state to count mail-in ballots if they arrived by April 13.
GOP leaders tried but failed to win a reversal from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. They then filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court and urged the justices to reject the extended time for accepting mail-in ballots. They said the judge's orders "means that tens of thousands of Wisconsin residents will be permitted to vote after the election day deadline." This creates a "serious possibility of fraud and misconduct."
Lawyers for the Democratic National Committee urged the court to stand back and to deny the GOP appeal. They said they had urged state leaders to postpone the election because neither poll workers nor voters would want to gather to cast ballots at a polling place.
While they endorsed the idea of more voting by mail, "it quickly became apparent that thousands, if not tens of thousands of voters would not even receive their timely requested absentee ballots until on or after April 7." They said they supported the judge's decision to extend the deadline for the state to accept otherwise valid absentee ballots.
