State court bars governor’s order to delay primary
MADISON, Wis. — Voters in Wisconsin will face a choice on Tuesday of participating in a presidential primary election or heeding warnings from public health officials to stay away from large crowds during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday ordered the election to proceed, hours after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers issued an executive order postponing it for two months. Evers made a lastditch effort to stop inperson voting on Tuesday out of concerns about putting poll workers and voters at risk of being exposed to COVID19.
The court ruled 42, with four conservatives in support and two liberals against, that Evers lacked the authority to move the election on his own. Evers had previously opposed moving the election and said he didn’t have the authority to shift the timing unilaterally. But he changed course Monday, ordering a delay of inperson voting to June 9, as poll sites closed because nervous volunteers were unwilling to staff them and as criticism about holding the election grew.
The governor said his order was the last hope for stopping the election. “There’s not a Plan B. There’s not a Plan C,” Evers said earlier Monday.
The Wisconsin election is being viewed as a national test case in a broader fight over voter access in the age of the coronavirus with major implications for the presidential primary contests ahead — and, possibly, the November general election. Many other states pushed their primaries back as the coronavirus swept across the nation.
Later Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a plan to extend absentee voting in Wisconsin’s primary by six days because of the coronavirus. Republicans had asked the court to throw out a lower court’s order extending absentee voting to April 13. The justices split 54, with the five Republicanappointed justices siding with national and Wisconsin Republicans to prohibit the expanded absentee voting.
At the presidential level, Joe Biden already has a commanding delegate lead over Bernie Sanders, and the Wisconsin results aren’t likely to dampen his march to the Democratic nomination. But the tumult in one of the most critical general election battlegrounds underscored the challenge of voting during a pandemic when public health officials are discouraging groups from gathering for virtually any reason to prevent the spread of the virus.
Evers himself had questioned whether he had the power to reschedule the election, but said the worsening situation, including an increase in COVID19 deaths from 56 on Friday to 77 on Monday, made it clear there was no way to safely move forward. “The people of Wisconsin, the majority of them, don’t spend all their waking hours thinking about are Republicans or Democrats getting the upper hand here,” Evers said earlier Monday. “They’re saying they’re scared. They’re scared of going to the polls.”