Morry Gash/AP Photo
Voters masked against the coronavirus line up at Riverside High School to participate in Wisconsin’s primary election, Tuesday, April 7, 2020, in Milwaukee.
The only reason that the Republican National Committee doesn’t have John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh on the payroll is that they know they have them for free.
Yesterday, as in Bush v. Gore and Shelby County v. Holder (which struck down much of the Voting Rights Act), the Republican majority on the United States Supreme Court did its damnedest to throw an election to their very own Republicans. The Gang of Five overturned the ruling of a federal District Court that extended the period of absentee voting in Wisconsin for one week, to April 13.
The Court’s ruling came roughly at the same time that their mini-me’s—four Republican justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court—overturned Governor Tony Evers’s postponement of today’s Wisconsin primary until June. Alone among the 11 states that had primaries scheduled this month, Wisconsin—that is, the Republican majorities in the state legislature—decreed that this one would proceed despite the coronavirus shelter-in-place rule. Of course, today’s on-again-off-again-on-again-again election will be a travesty, with many, probably most, polling places closed due to a lack of poll workers. In Milwaukee, which, not coincidentally, is home to the largest concentration of the state’s Democrats, the usual 180 polling places have been consolidated to a mere five.
That’s five. 5. (V, if you prefer Roman numerals.)
Just how long will Milwaukee voters be willing to wait in daylong lines to cast their ballots when exposure to the virus can be fatal? Wisconsin Republicans have doubtless (and happily) calculated: very few.
Not wishing to send such voters to the grave for the crime of exercising their franchise, Democratic Governor Evers did what every other governor, Democrat or Republican, has done: postponed the election. As the actual casting of large numbers of ballots could lead to GOP defeats, however, the state’s Republican justices (one of whom is actually on today’s ballot in a closely contested race—he abstained from the decision) overturned Evers’s cancellation.
One might have thought that the Gang of Five here in Washington would be so appreciative of their Wisconsin counterparts’ partisanship that they’d leave well enough alone. But Roberts and Co. are made of sterner stuff. They ruled that voters couldn’t send in their absentee ballots any later than today. That overlooked the fact that tens of thousands of absentee ballots have only been mailed to voters in the last few days, as the severity of the coronavirus threat became more evident. As a general rule, older, more established voters, disproportionately Republican, request mail ballots routinely—and early. Younger, less established voters, disproportionately Democratic, go to the polls—except when it turns out to be a life-threatening endeavor.
Brett Kavanaugh, in his ruling, expressed a touching faith in the speed of county clerks and the postal system to move the mail, even to late deciders (that is, Democrats). Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent, said that the ruling would effectively disenfranchise many thousands of voters.
And there, in a nutshell, you have the fundamental difference between the Democratic and Republican justices who sit on our highest court. The Democrats see voter disenfranchisement as a problem. The Republicans see it as a solution—to what for them is the real problem, which is how to maintain power when a majority of their fellow Americans no longer wish them to wield it.
