Wisconsin Supreme Court Blows Up Absentee Voting
Everything was running according to plan in Wisconsin. The state’s 72 county clerks print the ballots, mail them to voters, collect election results, and coordinate their canvassing boards, while 1,850 municipal clerks at the city, village, or township level operate the polling places and handle absentee ballots. The state had prepared for the national election after a tumultuous April election.
This last Thursday September 11th, Wisconsin was all set to have a smooth national election. The state’s 1,850 municipal clerks had printed at least 2.3 million absentee ballots in preparation of another surge in absentee voting (which occurred earlier this year – April) and had already mailed 378,482 of them. They were under way and would to meet the Sept. 17 deadline established by state law when ballots had to be mailed. A deadline by which the SCOTUS had mandated
A little history, this April, the municipal clerks were crushed by a last-minute surge of requests for absentee ballots from residents who decided to vote by such due to a fear of the Covid pandemic. The resulting delays from not having enough ballots led to ballots being mailed later to voters and a delayed vote, with ballots being received after the state deadline.
On April 6th, SCOTUS in a 5-4 vote with the majority decision authored by Justice Kavanaugh “approved one of the most brazen acts of voter suppression in modern history. The court will nullify the votes of citizens who mailed in their ballots late—not because they forgot, but because they did not receive ballots until after Election Day due to the coronavirus pandemic.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent, the court’s order “will result in massive disenfranchisement.” The conservative majority claimed that its decision would help protect “the integrity of the election process.” In reality, it calls into question the legitimacy of the election itself.”
State officials had learned their lesson, planned far ahead to have enough ballots available, and set the stage for the prompt and orderly mailing of millions of ballots to give voters enough lead time to vote on time.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has already begun to sabotage the election/absentee voting with the latest issues involving Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker. Applications to be on the ballot involves applicants (in this case Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker) to submit 2,000 valid signatures each. The paperwork filed by the two applicants had a problem as many of the signature sheets included an address of a motel in South Carolina differing from the one Angela Walker filed in her sworn declaration of candidacy.
Once discovered, Angela Walker “had” an opportunity to explain this discrepancy, “declined” and or failed to do so, and in accordance with state law; the Wisconsin Elections Commission in a tie-vote rejected the signatures collected under the wrong address. Walker was left with fewer than the required 2,000 signatures and the commission on August 20th declined to place the Green Party ticket on the ballot. Two weeks later on September 3rd petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court to place their names onto the ballot anyway. During this period clerks printed and began mailing ballots.
Wisconsin Green Party co-Chair Barbara Dahlgren expressed frustration with the process of getting on the state ballot, which was complicated by the difficulty of collecting signatures during a pandemic. She noted that the Elections Commission staff decision was based on a technicality. As an all-volunteer organization with limited resources, Dahlgren said the Wisconsin Green Party responded as quickly as it could. Dahlgren’s comment:
“We would like for the Supreme Court to rule on this quickly because to us it’s plain as day that we should be on the ballot,”
Interesting, this is not the Green Party’s first rodeo. The Green Party did not review their petition before the submission, did not file a timely statement explaining the different addresses on Ms. Hawkins petition after the Commission decided, failed to file a timely petition to a well known notoriously partisan the court so as to the . . . cough, cough, de . . . cough . . . lay or cause the halt of the mailing of absentee ballots early on in the process. And no they did not receive aid from the other another cough . . . par . . cough . . . ty cough in delaying the process? I am sure the Republicans were more than happy to disrupt the absentee ballot process which they did. Amazing.
On a Thursday, September 10th in the afternoon, by a 4–3 divided along partisan lines, the court issued its order which will throw the election into chaos. The conservative majority court directed the Wisconsin Elections Commission to turn over a massive amount of information, halted the mailing of more absentee ballots while they consider nullifying every ballot that has been printed or mailed, and forces the state to start over. The stunning eleventh-hour intervention will force election officials into an impossible position to: comply with the court’s order and not violate both state and federal law.
So, the fight against trump and Republicans begins . . .
Meanwhile Kanye West is waiting for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to rule on whether he can be on the ballot after a Brown County Circuit Court judge ruled Friday (September 11th) West does not qualify for the ballot which upholds the commission’s 5-1 (two Republicans agreed with Dems) vote to bar West because his campaign submitted petitions after the 5 PM deadline August 4. West’s campaign missed the deadline by seconds. Deliberate? Petitions were filed by attorney Lane Ruhland who formerly served as the Wisconsin Republican Party legal counsel and recently represented the Trump campaign in its lawsuit against a television station for running an advertisement the Trump campaign considered “false and defamatory.”
In the end and if this late filing was due to unpredictable delay, Mr. Ruhland should know better as an experienced and well regarded attorney then to wait so long.
“The Wisconsin Supreme Court Has Already Begun to Sabotage Absentee Voting,” Slate Jurisprudence, Mark Joseph Stern, September 11, 2020
“Wisconsin Supreme Court Upends Mailing of Absentee Ballots,” Who.What.Why., Darla Dernovsek, September 13, 2020
Scott Walker never saw a gerry he couldn’t mander.
Hey Run, as a Wisconsin resident for the first 63 years of my life and a recovering lawyer to boot, I am certainly frustrated with not only the politicization but the decline in legal acumen of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. I agree that the Greens waited too long and should have appeared before the Commission. That being said the Dems were relying on a technicality for political reasons and brought this on themselves. They gave the GOP an opportunity to screw them. Anecdotally, I was in west central Wisconsin this past week and the Trump signs far outnumbered the Biden signs. Not a lot of mask wearing by younger people- under 50– but the numbers are climbing not only in the college towns but also in the rural counties. My question for you is that I was listening to Michael Smerconish this morning on the drive back to Indiana and he had a guy from Stanford and another from Harvard basically citing studies in Sweden and Iceland to argue that children in schools are not at risk nor are they likely to spread Covid-19. I wondered whether you were aware of the studies, whether they were well run and conceived and whether this is “ science” or more disinformation?
Terry:
Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Norway, the Czechs, Hungarians, French, Slovaks, etc. are like the Americans??? Notttttttttttttttttttttttttt. Americans are a pretty stupid bunch of people who believe they are impervious to everything and we do stupid things which cuts into our ability to endure an epidemic and survive. Masks do work as does social distancing.
There is a comment for the Pfizer BNT162b2; “At 30 μg recorded 7 days after the second dose resulted in SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing “geometric mean titers” (GMTs) in younger adults (18-55 years of age) 3.8 times the GMT of a panel of 38 sera (blood serum containing antibodies) of SARS-CoV2 convalescent patients. In older adults (65-85 years of age), the vaccine candidate elicited a neutralizing GMT 1.6 times the GMT of the same panel. BNT162b2 vaccine demonstrates a strong immunogenicity in younger and older adults. This is implying what you are saying. After vaccination, younger people develop a greater resistance to cell mutation than older people. I suspect the resistance to Covid is greater for younger people. That could very well be discovered on the placebo side if followed.
When they were discussing HCQ, and how it does or does not do anything to resist the onslaught of the Covid virus. Both sides agreed that HCQ does little in impacting the Covid virus and has lesser an impact the longer Covid goes without treatment. HCQ is used as an ionophore for another drug such as AZT, Zinc, etc. The zinc attaches to the Covid RNA and prevents the Covid from replicating. It is only good early on (<10 days) in the treatment of Covid the same as remdesivir.
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn issued an ESU for the use of remdesivir over any length of time. First it has not gone through Phase III clinical trials and secondly remdesivir has shown little impact beyond 10 days. By that time the white cells are attacking the virus and can be releasing overwhelming amounts of cytokines -- inflammation-stimulating molecules -- into the blood alerting cells to take action against the virus. Simplistically speaking (others will define it better detail) and in the lungs, you are drowning from your own immune system.
Back to your point, it may be true and it may not be true with younger people. When administered a dose of BNT162b2 younger people developed a greater resistance to cell mutation than older people. The same would hold true to an extent. Some older people who have contracted Covid have developed neurological or psychological after-effects of their infections resulting from mild or serious Covid. Would you really risk your child to make such a point?
I am not a doctor or microbiologist either.
Update. Justice Hagedorn broke with the conservatives and joined the liberals noting the Green Party waited too long to bring their complaint and the ballots without the Green Party will be mailed out by Thursday in accordance with state law.
Terry:
Thank you. I had read your remarks earlier and went on a hunt for greater depth on the health issue with you and elsewhere It is good news one senior justice has exhibited the morality to choose the proper path. The resolve shown after a tie vote has some history to it in that a tie vote results in no change. A later 5-1 vote was clearly against Kayne’s too late attempt to get on the ballot. I suspect he is off to Federal Court in an attempt to disrupt (only) the vote in Wisconsin.
Thanks for your thoughts on children and Covid Run. Kayne actually went to state court—circuit court not Supremes—and I believe lost. With the absentee ballots going out—I heard more than 1 million— this week I do not see the federal courts doing anything for him or the Greens.
First, it had to get really bad. Hard way to go.
One of the biggest developments in the 2020 presidential race just happened
via @BostonGlobe – September 15
One of the most important developments in the 2020 presidential race took place on Monday. Few noticed it.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Green Party will not appear on the state’s general election ballot, for largely technical reasons — a Green Party error.
But while the rationale is irrelevant, the result is not: the conservative-leaning top court in Wisconsin delivered what might be a huge boon to Joe Biden and Democrats in the election, which is less than 50 days away.
Both Biden and President Trump’s campaigns view taking Wisconsin as vital in their paths to winning the election.
In 2016, Trump won the state and a key to that victory may have been the role that third parties like the Green Party played. That year the Green Party’s presidential candidate, Jill Stein, received roughly 31,000 votes, more than Trump’s margin of victory over Clinton.
The court’s ruling upholds an earlier decision by the Wisconsin Elections Commission to not allow the party on the ballot because its signature petitions listed two different addresses for its vice presidential nominee, Angela Walker, who just happens to live in Wisconsin. …
it is not too late, except that we will not take advantage of it.
mail in voting is probably just as honest as the other kind. but the fact is it is not transparent and people like me (liberal through and through) don’t trust it, and certainly people not like me (believe whatever fox news tells them) don’t trust it.
well, i don’t trust voting machines either … or state voter suppression schemes, but we can’t do much about that until we win an election or two.
the answer is first, more, many more, polling places, so people, wearing masks, can socially distance while still getting to vote in a reasonable amount of time.
second is paper ballots counted in front of the voters. this can be managed… after the hand count at the precinct/polliong place, reults from all polling places can be counted electronically and we can still go to bed knowing who won.
that should have been “peope NOT like me…who believe Fox News…”
Terry
don’t take “Harvard” and “Stanford” as indicating either real expertise or, mostly, honesty. maybe, maybe not.
but there is evidence that kids do get sick and do pass on the infection. they may be less likely to get sick, and more likely to recover..
but how much “less likely” do you want if it’s your kid?
there are lies all around us, especially from high places. try to keep your head.