Wisconsin's Supreme Court rules along partisan lines to require the state to hold its election Tues. [View all]

Wisconsin’s plan to hold an election in the middle of a pandemic is back on.

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/6/21209670/wisconsin-governor-delays-election-tony-evers-republicans-state-supreme-court

On Monday, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers attempted to reschedule an election the state is planning to hold on Tuesday, handing down an order suspending in-person voting until June 9 “unless the Legislature passes and the Governor approves a different date for in-person voting.” On a party-line vote, however, the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court struck down Evers’s order, meaning that the state is now on track to hold its election as originally scheduled.

The vote was 4-2, with Justice Daniel Kelly, a staunch conservative, recused because he is a candidate in Tuesday’s election. Republicans have fought tooth and nail against nearly any effort to delay the election or to make it easier for voters to cast mail-in ballots, and the state Supreme Court is dominated by Republicans. Last week, Evers called the state legislature into session and asked it to delay the election. But the Republican-controlled legislature ended that session a few seconds after it was convened.

Republicans also rejected Evers’s proposal to automatically mail ballots to every voter in the state, and they’ve fought hard in federal court — including in the US Supreme Court — to prevent ballots from being counted after the original April 7 election date. On Monday evening, the US Supreme Court ruled against a lower court judge’s order extending the deadline for receiving mail-in votes. Nearly a dozen states have chosen to postpone presidential primary and local elections as most Americans remain at home to avoid spreading the coronavirus.

Wisconsin’s election is shaping up to be a trainwreck

With the coronavirus pandemic raging, most poll workers had refused to work Tuesday’s election, leading Evers to call up the National Guard in order to staff the polls. But this stopgap measure appears to have done little to prevent mass poll closures. In Milwaukee, for example, local election officials announced that there would be only five polling locations open — instead of the typical 180.

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