Local Wisconsin election officials made a
terrible judgment call, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court has
confirmed it. On Monday the Court ruled “that state and local
election officials erred when they gave blanket permission allowing
voters to declare themselves homebound and skip voter ID
requirements in the 2020 election” reports Just the News.
The error resulted in the opportunity for Republicans to
challenge “tens of thousands of ballots.” COVID-19 shutdown
mandates, in other words, were not justification for skipping voter
ID requirements to vote absentee. “we conclude that both the
contention that electors qualify as indefinitely confined and
solely as the result of the COVID19 pandemic and the declared
public
health emergency and the declared public health emergency and
the contention that Wis. Stat.�§ 6.86(2)(a) could be used for
those who ‘have trouble presenting a valid ID’ are erroneous
because those reasons do not come within the statutory criteriaâ€
the
court ruled.
In summation, the majority ruling concluded that local officials
like Dane County and
Governor Tony Evers’ “Emergency Order #12 did not render
all Wisconsin electors ‘indefinitely confined,’ thereby
obviating the requirement of a valid photo identification to obtain
an absentee ballot.†Therefore, Evers did not have legal
authority to issue the executive order earlier this year exempting
all voters to get an absentee ballot without an ID.
Just the News reports that court filings show nearly 200,000
voters declared themselves permanently confined for the state’s
primary in the spring, and even more people did for the general
election. “The ruling opens the doors for Republicans to
potentially challenge those votes if it can be shown the voters
weren’t sick or elderly as required by the law.â€
The post
WI Supreme Court Rules State Did Not Have Authority to Abandon
Voter ID Rules Due to COVID appeared first on Gregg Jarrett.
