The Supreme Court on Friday said it would not reverse an appeals court order that will keep vote-by-mail limited in Texas in the pandemic.
The state Democratic party had sued the state over its absentee voting restrictions that allow only voters 65-and-older to vote by mail without any excuse. The lawsuit alleges that the policy violates the Constitution’s 26th Amendment ban on age-based voter discrimination. A federal judge agreed with the Democrats’ argument, but then an appeals court put that judge’s order on hold, prompting the Democrats to turn to the Supreme Court for an intervention.
No justice publicly dissented from the Supreme Court’s refusal to reverse the appeals court’s hold. But the move did come with a statement from Justice Sonia Sotomayor that hinted that she would like to come back to the case at a later stage in its proceedings.
NEW: Supreme Court turns down request from Texas Democrats to allow everyone in the state to vote by mail, not just those over 65 pic.twitter.com/wuQGXnTJhS
— Adam Liptak (@adamliptak) June 26, 2020
Texas Democrats argued that the Supreme Court should get involved now because the appeals court did not seem to be in a rush to fully resolve the case on its merits.
In a statement, the party said that it was “disappointed” with the Supreme Court’s move Friday, particularly because there is a primary election in Texas next month, but that “hope remains that the federal courts will restore equal voting rights in time for the November elections.”
Texas is an outlier in its refusal to loosen its restrictions on absentee voting for the pandemic.
Texas Republicans just want to kill them all.
Look, while I would have liked the result to be the other way, I think that it was a mistake to go for this at the Supreme Court. We got away with an advantage in the WI ruling (requiring counting if received for up to a week) and pushing the issue directly was not going to work.
Given the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling, Roberts (the only one who matters on these issues) was not going to be a 5th vote for a stay/win, and this was NOT the record to take this issue up (it only takes 4 votes for cert, requiring the Court to address the merits).
Sotomayer was sending the signal to build a better record next time.
The reality is that Texas may be unsolvable as to absentee ballots in 2020. Too much corrupt Republican control. Luckily other swing states have either non-corrupt Secretary of States (e.g. GA, AZ) or well established procedures for mail in voting and/or enough Democrats to prevent ratfuckery (WI, PA, FL, NC, Iowa). Texas is sort of the outlier as a place where issues will arise.
OTOH, the state should be investigated by the next administration and sued under the voting rights act.
And one final note, I really don’t think this is going to help Trump and Cornyn. People are justifiably affraid to vote, and substantial percentages of Republicans don’t agree that people should vote in person in a pandemic. And the race is currently this:
Piss off a few points of the texas republican electorate and Trump and Cornyn go down…
P.S. I recalled seeing the Question on vote by mail being asked, and found it: June 3, 2020 Q-poll
31% of republicans and 53% of people over 65 think people should be allowed to vote by mail. I think this is a silly hill to die on, likely to piss off a lot of voters who don’t like the republicans putting them at risk.
Everything’s deader in Texas.
What’s that saying about “justice delayed…”?
On some level, however, post middle age to elderly whites, an at risk group, the GOP’s most reliable voting bloc may be as suppressed or even more so than any other group. This may cut both ways, If we’re lucky.