There seems to be some confusion about the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday in connection with Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary. This owes to reporting that suggests or at least could lead its audience to believe, that the court’s five conservative-leaning, Republican-appointed justices, over the strident objection of its four left-leaning, Democratic-appointed justices, directed that the primary proceed with in-person voting, despite the coronavirus threat.
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That is not what happened.
The state government of Wisconsin, led by Gov. Anthony Steven Evers, a Democrat, made the decision to go forward with the primary, and with in-person voting. As the court’s majority emphasizes, that was not the court’s call, nor is it the court’s place to opine on the wisdom of the state government’s decision.
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The majority’s unsigned opinion explains that the issue the court was called upon to decide was a narrow one, pertaining to absentee ballots. Specifically, at the urging of Democratic Party organizations concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on voting, federal District Judge William Conley (an Obama appointee) extended the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots from Tuesday, April 7 (the primary-election day), to Monday afternoon, April 13. That aspect of the district court’s ruling was not in dispute. Judge Conley, however, directed that absentee ballots were eligible to be counted regardless of when they were mailed in or otherwise delivered, as long as they came in by the April 13 deadline. In effect, that meant absentee ballots could be cast after in-person primary voting had closed on April 7.
Obviously, this could mean the election would be materially altered by events occurring after formal conclusion of the primary election — not least, news about the apparent election result. To address this problem, Judge Conley further ordered the Wisconsin Election Commission and election inspectors to suppress any report of the voting results until after the new April 13 deadline for the receipt of absentee ballots.
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