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Ruth Bader Ginsburg slams SCOTUS decision on Wisconsin absentee voting

By
Emily Jacobs
Published April 7, 2020
Updated April 7, 2020, 11:27 a.m. ET

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg decried a decision made by the Supreme Court’s majority blocking an extension to the absentee ballot deadline in Wisconsin, where the governor unsuccessfully tried to postpone in-person voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The high court on Monday blocked a lower court’s extension of the ballot deadline in a 5-4 decision, just hours after the Wisconsin Supreme Court shut down Gov. Tony Evers’ last-minute executive order postponing voting in Tuesday’s contests.

In her dissent, Ginsburg, who was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, wrote that the ruling “will result in massive disenfranchisement.”

“The question here is whether tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens can vote safely in the midst of a pandemic. Under the District Court’s order, they would be able to do so. Even if they receive their absentee ballot in the days immediately following election day, they could return it,” RBG wrote.

“With the majority’s stay in place, that will not be possible. Either they will have to brave the polls, endangering their own and others’ safety. Or they will lose their right to vote, through no fault of their own. That is a matter of utmost importance — to the constitutional rights of Wisconsin’s citizens, the integrity of the State’s election process, and in this most extraordinary time, the health of the Nation.”

Supreme Court Justice. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader GinsburgGetty Images

Ginsburg went on to say she wasn’t doubting “the good faith” of her colleagues on the bench, but that the majority was not grasping just how significantly the pandemic had altered everyday life nationwide.

“The Court’s suggestion that the current situation is not ‘substantially different’ from ‘an ordinary
election’ boggles the mind,” the feminist icon wrote.

United States Supreme Court (Front L-R) Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., (Back L-R) Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh
United States Supreme Court: (front, from left) Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr.; (rear, from left) Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan and Associate Justice Brett KavanaughGetty Images

“Now, under this Court’s order, tens of thousands of absentee voters, unlikely to receive their ballots in time to cast them, will be left quite literally without a vote.”

In an unusual move, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion was not listed with any justice as the author and included a disclaimer early in the text that the court was only upholding the longstanding opposition to last-minute orders by federal judges that threw election processes into chaos.

It added that the court was not making an endorsement of any specific electoral practices to adopt in the wake of the coronavirus, nor was it ruling out potential changes being made to those practices in the future.

“The Court’s decision on the narrow question before the Court should not be viewed as expressing an opinion on the broader question of whether to hold the election, or whether other reforms or modifications in election procedures in light of COVID–19 are appropriate. That point cannot be stressed enough,” the majority opinion read.