Supreme Court Sides With Trump Will Not Allow Wisconsin's Ballot Deadline Extension

 The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Democrats’ efforts in Wisconsin to allow state election officials to accept mail-in ballots that arrive later than Nov. 3.

The ruling

The high court ruled 5-3 against reinstating an order by a lower court that would have allowed officials to count mail-in and absentee ballots even if they arrived up to six days after Election Day but were postmarked by Nov. 3.

Progressive justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer opposed the decision.

Wisconsin is one of about 30 states that require a mail-in or absentee ballot to arrive by Nov. 3 in order to be counted.

Democrats in the state have argued extending the period by which ballots are received was necessary due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is aligned with a previous ruling by a federal district judge who decided the Nov. 3 deadline violated Wisconsin voters’ rights amid the pandemic and ruled to extend the deadline by six days.

But a federal appeals court in Chicago blocked the judge’s order, arguing it violated a precedent set by the Supreme Court that prohibits changing election rules so close to an election, CBS News reported.

The decision comes about a week after the Supreme Court agreed with the ruling of a Pennsylvania state court to extend the deadline for accepting ballots in the state by three days.

In an opinion Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts explained the decision, saying that unlike the Pennsylvania order, the Wisconsin order concerns a lower federal court, not a state court.

“While the Pennsylvania applications implicated the authority of state courts to apply their own constitutions to election regulations, this case involves federal intrusion on state lawmaking processes. Different bodies of law and different precedents govern these two situations and require, in these particular circumstances, that we allow the modification of election rules in Pennsylvania but not Wisconsin,” Roberts wrote.

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