MADISON - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Wisconsin's voting laws Monday, rejecting an effort to require the counting of absentee ballots that are sent back to election officials on or just before Election Day. The court's 5-3 ruling means that absentee ballots will be counted only if they are in the hands of municipal clerks by the time polls close on Nov. 3.
The justices determined the courts shouldn't be the ones to decide the election rules amid the coronavirus pandemic that is surging in Wisconsin and across the world.
"The Constitution provides that state legislatures — not federal judges, not state judges, not state governors, not other state officials — bear primary responsibility for setting election rules," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion.
In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan gave that notion short shrift, noting Wisconsin's Republican-run Legislature hasn't met since April. Extending the deadline for absentee ballots should have been allowed, she wrote.
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