Wisconsin Supreme Court overturns governor, orders Tuesday elections to proceed
From WWW.POLITICO.COM
Evers — who had previously maintained that he alone did not have the authority to postpone an election — issued his order seeking to push back the elections on Monday, saying that he was acting to reduce exposure to the virus and ease concerns among his constituents about the spread of the pandemic. Evers issued a stay-at-home order last month as part of his administration's efforts to fight coronavirus.
At a press conference before the state Supreme Court's order, Evers indicated this would be his last move to try to postpone the election. "This will be the last avenue that we’re taking," Evers said at the press conference. ”There's not a Plan B. There's not a Plan C."
Shortly after the state Supreme Court's ruling, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that absentee ballots must be postmarked by April 7 and received by 4 p.m. on April 13 to count. The high court's ruling overturns a district court's ruling from last week that ordering that ballots received by 4 p.m. on April 13 would count, regardless of when they were postmarked.
Wisconsin law typically requires that ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
While the Supreme Court's ruling was narrow, it still sharply divided the justices. The five justices in the majority — all five Republican appointees to the high court — wrote a detailed, though unsigned, rebuttal to a dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in which she warned that their ruling "will result in massive disenfranchisement."
"Either they will have to brave the polls, endangering their own and others’ safety," Ginsburg wrote of the state's voters who have yet to receive their absentee ballots. "Or they will lose their right to vote, through no fault of their own."
Progressive groups were scrambling late Monday to determine what legal action, if any, they could take in an attempt to win an injunction.
A separate lawsuit was also filed last week in federal court in Wisconsin by Democratic state Sen. Lena Taylor, a mayoral candidate, and other parties seeking to postpone the election.
“The virus directs us as to what our decision-making is, not human beings, and clearly I am following the science, as I always have,” the Democratic governor told POLITICO shortly before announcing his order. Evers said he heard from constituents relaying fear for their safety and their kids’ safety, as he tracked updates about the number of deaths and rate of infections in Wisconsin. “Given that, I felt that the governor is the one who has to step up and stand for those people that aren’t having their voices heard.”
"The clerks of this state should stand ready to proceed with the election," state House Speaker Robin Vos and state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said in a joint statement upon appealing Evers' order. "The governor's executive order is clearly an unconstitutional overreach."
"The governor himself has repeatedly acknowledged he can't move the election," the statehouse leaders continued. "Gov. Evers can't unilaterally run the state."
Evers tweeted on April 1 that he couldn't postpone the election by himself. "If I cou... (Read more)
Tweets mentioned:
Submitted 1479 days ago
Latest News