Courts block in-person, absentee voting changes proposed to fight COVID-19

Polls in Wisconsin opened Tuesday morning despite warnings from health experts about the spread of COVID-19 and after the state Supreme Court sided with Republican leaders against Gov. Tony Evers’ eleventh-hour attempt to shift in-person voting to June.

The court voted 4-2 Monday evening to block Evers’ executive order, issued just four hours earlier, that would have shifted in-person voting to June 9 unless the Legislature and the governor agreed on a different date in a Tuesday special session.

“The question presented to this court is whether the governor has the authority to suspend or rewrite state election laws,” noted an amended order released late Monday night. “Although we recognize the extreme seriousness of the pandemic that this state is currently facing, we conclude that he does not.”

The court’s two dissenting judges said the decision means “democracy takes a step backwards” as the majority’s opinion “circumvents the law, while disenfranchising voters and putting at risk the health and safety of our fellow Wisconsinites.”

Evers issued the executive order after calling on the Legislature to meet over the weekend. He previously said he did not have the power to delay the election on his own.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said the court’s ruling affirms the separation of powers in the state’s Constitution.

They said the “safety and health of our citizens has always been our highest concern,” which is why they asked voters to cast absentee ballots.

“We continue to believe that citizens should be able to exercise their right to vote at the polls on Election Day, should they choose to do so,” they said in a statement.

Evers said in a statement that the decision means that “thousands will wake up and have to choose between exercising their right to vote and staying healthy and safe.”

“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,” he said in a statement.

Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm told reporters Monday that she and the agency’s public health experts advised Evers to take action and avoid mass gatherings in part caused by the consolidation of polling locations across the state due to a low number of poll workers.

“In-person voting would, without question, accelerate the transition of COVID-19 and increase the number of cases,” she said. “And an increase in the number of cases in Wisconsin would result in more deaths.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday night modified an order by a federal court that expanded the collection of absentee ballots until April 13 in Wisconsin in response to COVID-19. Under the court’s ruling, clerks won’t be able to count ballots postmarked after Tuesday.

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