Wisconsin Republicans ask justices to intervene after lower court extends deadline for primary absentee ballots

In an unexpected emergency filing arising from the COVID-19 crisis, the Republican National Committee and Wisconsin Republicans tonight requested the Supreme Court docket to block a lower-court buy that prolonged the deadline for Wisconsin votes to post absentee ballots in the state’s upcoming most important election right until April 13 – 6 days soon after the election, which is scheduled for Tuesday, April 7. Alternatively, Wisconsin Republicans urged the Supreme Court docket to make obvious that all “absentee ballots must be postmarked (or personally shipped to the polls) no later on than April 7 in buy to be counted.”

On Thursday, April 2, U.S. District Decide William Conley had entered his buy extending the deadline for absentee ballots. In undertaking so, Conley noted that “the extent of the threat of keeping the upcoming most important election had grow to be significantly obvious,” prompting voters in Wisconsin “to flock to the absentee ballot solution in report figures.” But the enhanced demand from customers had also established a “huge backlog” in the means of election officials to process the requests, Conley discussed, generating it complicated – if not extremely hard – for most voters to get an absentee ballot and return it by election day. On April three, the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the seventh Circuit rejected the Wisconsin Republicans’ request to put the district court’s buy on keep.

Acknowledging the “challenges that the current pandemic results in for voters and election officials,” the Wisconsin Republicans argued in today’s filing that they are seeking “exceedingly modest” reduction: They are inquiring the justices only “for a partial continue to be of the district court’s buy generating obvious that the extension of the deadline for the receipt of ballots applies only to those people that were being postmarked (or otherwise shipped) by April 7.” These reduction, the Wisconsin Republicans pressured, would give the plaintiffs in the circumstance – which consist of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Social gathering of Wisconsin – what they had in fact requested for, “respect this Court’s warnings about courts altering the rules on the eve of elections, and avert the serious risk of fraud and misconduct established by the district court’s buy.”

The greatest-profile race on Tuesday’s ballot is the Democratic presidential most important, but Wisconsin voters will also make a decision (among the other things) the fate of a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court docket, in a race that pits a conservative sitting down justice against a liberal challenger.

Wisconsin Republicans requested the justices to concern a continue to be of the lower court’s choice no later on than Monday, April 6. The court appears to be very likely to act on the request immediately: Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles unexpected emergency appeals from the seventh Circuit, instructed the plaintiffs to file their reaction no later on than 2 p.m. on Sunday, April five.

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