A Disastrous New Ruling Will Likely Disenfranchise Tens of Thousands of Wisconsin Voters – By Mark Joseph Stern (Slate) / Oct 8 2020
“Good luck and G-d bless, Wisconsin,” the dissenting judge wrote. “You are going to need it.”
A federal appeals court effectively disenfranchised thousands of Wisconsin voters in an appalling 2–1 decision on Thursday that swept away vital safeguards to protect voting rights during the pandemic. In a terse six-page opinion, the majority did not even consider Wisconsinites’ constitutional rights, but simply deferred to Republican legislators, who are fighting tooth and nail to throw out mail-in ballots. This cavalier attitude drew a sharp rebuke from Judge Ilana Rovner, whose 25-page dissent shredded the majority’s complicity in mass voter suppression. Her opinion doubled as a bracing criticism of the Supreme Court’s recent, disastrous election law decisions.
Wisconsin is currently a COVID-19 hot spot. Cases have surged across the state and hospitals are quickly reaching maximum capacity. Although Wisconsin allows no-excuse absentee voting, its election infrastructure was not designed to handle the unprecedented surge in absentee ballot requests due to the pandemic. During the state’s chaotic April election, several cities shuttered almost all of their polling places—leading to hourslong lines at the few remaining polls—and municipal clerks failed to send out thousands of absentee ballots in time. The state’s Legislature, which is dominated by Republicans due to an extreme partisan gerrymander, refused to change the law to prevent another meltdown in November. The Wisconsin Election Commission’s Republican members also blocked reforms to ease the burden on voters.
On Sept. 21, U.S. District Judge William M. Conley ruled that the maintenance of this status quo unconstitutionally infringed on the right to vote. He issued an order to ease certain restrictions to address new challenges posed by the pandemic. Most importantly, Conley extended the deadline to register by mail or online from Oct. 14 to Oct. 21. He also ordered the state to count absentee ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by Nov. 9. And he allowed residents to work at polls outside their county of residence. (An arbitrary state law bars poll workers from staffing any site outside their county.) These modifications protected voters who receive a late absentee ballot while reducing the odds of endless lines at the polls on Election Day
Continue to article: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/wisconsin-pandemic-absentee-voting-disenfranchised.html
