At Least It's Not Your Election, Badger State Edition

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by: Colorado Pols

Milwaukee resident Jennifer Taff requested an absentee ballot almost three weeks ago, never got it. She has a father dying from lung disease and then waited hours in line to vote at Washington High School. Photo from Patricia McKnight.

More: https://t.co/i7weo2xdfv pic.twitter.com/ceHb2i8zpC

— JR Radcliffe (@JRRadcliffe) April 7, 2020

As the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:

Wisconsin voters will head to the polls Tuesday after Gov. Tony Evers failed to shut down Tuesday’s election in a historic last-minute move that was swiftly rejected by the conservative majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The spring election will take place with polls opening at 7 a.m. statewide in the face of a warning from the state’s top health official who said voting in person will “without question” lead to more illness and death as coronavirus spreads through the state.

Six chaotic hours on Monday during which state leaders fought in court over whether to hold the election ended with a U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring all absentee ballots to be postmarked by Tuesday, reversing a federal judge’s order to extend absentee voting by a week and forcing thousands who hadn’t yet received their ballots to vote in person or not at all…

Here in Colorado, where laws designed to make voting easy include mail ballots sent to all active voters and same-day registration, the electoral train wreck unfolding in Wisconsin today looks like a tragedy so preventable it must be by design. Absentee ballots were reportedly requested by Wisconsin voters in record numbers, but results in Colorado prove there’s just no comparison to a true mail ballot system for facilitating access to the franchise–and this year, safe access. To force voters to the polls without regard for public safety instead of simply postponing of Wisconsin’s old-school election is an insidious form of vote suppression that simply wouldn’t be possible in our state.

It’s common knowledge that Republicans want fewer people to vote, but this is an ugly way to show it.

7 thoughts on “At Least It’s Not Your Election, Badger State Edition”

JeffcoBlue says:

April 7, 2020 at 1:53 pm

If Scott Walker wasn't proof enough, Republicans in Wisconsin are extra evil.

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1. gertie97 says:
  
  April 7, 2020 at 2:31 pm
  
  Republicans everywhere are scared shitless by mail voting. With good reason from their perspective.
  
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  1. MADCO says:
    
    April 7, 2020 at 4:02 pm
    
    vote by mail > increased turnout > fewer R wins
    
    Measured as it impacts there electability, they aren't wrong to oppose it.
    
    In fact, the same demo opposed women voting and elections for Senators. Measured by subsequent electoral outcomes – they were right.
    
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MADCO says:

April 7, 2020 at 4:05 pm

F'ing Wisconsin.

Wisconsin elects their Supreme Court judges.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_supreme_court

Now- they are not Indiana who attempted to legislate the value of pi to 4 decimals and has periods with more than a dozen time zones.

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JohnInDenver says:

April 7, 2020 at 8:43 pm

Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the election must go on / the Governor has no power to postpone the election or vary ballot deadlines.

The ruling is published immediately under their banner announcing

In an effort to protect the public, attorneys, court staff, and judges from the health risks associated with COVID-19, the Wisconsin courts have issued orders temporarily suspending in-person proceedings statewide, with certain limited exceptions.

Suspending a number of constitutional rights (such as "speedy trial") in order to protect court personnel, but being unwilling to do something similar to protect voting workers. Hmmm…. methinks there may be some political analysis involved in the selection of which Constitutional rights to allow.

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1. MichaelBowman says:
  
  April 7, 2020 at 11:17 pm
  
  WWGD?
  
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2. Genghis says:
  
  April 8, 2020 at 8:23 am
  
  Meanwhile, back in D.C., the Trump Court majority isn't even pretending to be anything other than a gaggle of partisan hacks. "The Notorious RBG's dissent is well worth reading" will be an oft-repeated sentence as long as Justice Ginsburg remains alive and in her chambers. Hopefully, some of those dissents will serve as the basis for new law in the distant future.
  
  "Conservative" legal writers are now squawking about how originalism was a useful rhetorical device to achieve an aim, but now that the wingers have control of the judiciary, it's time to come up with new moral underpinnings for jurisprudence in general and constitutional adjudication in particular. "Moral," of course, = pro-white, pro-wealth, pro-corporate, pro-law-'n'-order, anti-gubmint (but only to the extent gubmit is is becoming insufficiently pro-white, etc.).
  
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