Joe.My.God. LGBT News
NBC News reports:
Wisconsin cannot count mail ballots that arrive well after the polls close under an order issued late Monday by the Supreme Court, a defeat for Democrats in a battleground state.
By a vote of 5-3, the justices declined to lift a lower court ruling preventing the state from counting mail ballots that arrive as much as six days after Election Day. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan said they would have granted the request.
Voting rights groups, the state and national Democratic parties and the League of Women Voters sued seeking to extend the deadline to accept mail-in ballots. They said the flood of absentee ballots and problems arising from the coronavirus pandemic make it harder for voters to receive their mail ballots and return them on time.
The Daily Beast reports:
In his notes explaining his decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered a very Trumpian warning that any votes that came in after Election Day could be viewed as illegitimate.
He wrote: “States want to avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after Election Day and potentially flip the results of an election.”
Justice Elena Kagan used her dissenting opinion in the case to rebuke the Trump appointee, writing: “There are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted. And nothing could be more ‘suspicio[us]’ or ‘improp[er]’ than refusing to tally votes once the clock strikes 12 on Election Night.”
Kavanaugh issued what amounts to a veiled threat tonight that the court may need to block states from counting votes after election night. In other words he’s crafted into judicial-speak Trumps demands that the winner has to be known on election night.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 27, 2020