Wisconsin Republicans chose politics over death

Defying the state's "safer at home" directive as well as health officials' warnings that in-person voting on April 7 would jeopardize the health of voters and poll workers, Wisconsin Republicans forced the April 7 elections to go forward.

Driven by dire warnings that the week of April 6 would be the deadliest yet in the coronavirus pandemic, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers issued an eleventh-hour executive order to postpone the election.

The state’s top health officials agreed with the plan, saying that in-person voting would “without question” lead to illness and death, as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  

But on April 6, the Republican-dominated Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Evers' order, overturning two lower-court decisions green-lighting the postponement until June. The justices "met" to reach their decision by communicating online from the safety of their homes.

At the same time, the Republican-majority US Supreme Court overturned lower-court rulings allowing the state to extend by one week the period in which voters could return absentee ballots. There have been so many absentee ballot requests that 45,000 had yet to be received as of April 6 and 11,000 had yet to be mailed out to voters.

“It is unconscionable,” tweeted NAACP official Sherrilyn Ifill in response to that decision. “It is among the most cynical decisions I have read from this Court — devoid of even the pretense of engaging with the reality that this decision will mean one of two things for many WI voters: either they will risk their health & lives to vote, or they will be disenfranchised.”

Republicans’ self-acknowledged aim is to suppress the vote in Milwaukee, which has not only the state’s most Democratic voters, but also its highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

The most important race on the ballot was not the Democratic primary. Scott-Walker-appointed Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly was also on the ballot for retention. That put Wisconsin's conservative-majority justices in the awkward position of issuing a ruling that increased their colleague's chances of winning the election and maintaining their 5-2 super majority on the state’s highest court.

They didn't did just that, without even blinking.

Too late

The US Supreme Court ruled against extending the period of absentee voting because the order was issued so close to the election. Evers' reluctance to act swiftly and decisively on this issue rattled Democrats and election officials for weeks.

"It's just distressing that …  there is this 11th-hour scramble to try to address an issue that I think many of us have been trying to press for months now, as we watch the COVID-19 pandemic escalate in the country and in Wisconsin and in the city of Milwaukee,” Milwaukee Elections Commission director Neil Albrecht, told ABC News.

Preparing for the election, Milwaukee had reduced the number of polling places from 180 to just 5. For those who did show up at the polls, that made for long lines and large crowds. Voters tried standing six-feet apart, as advised by health authorities. Still, many poll workers said they would not work and risk their lives and those of their family members by placing themselves in a virtual coronavirus petri dish.

Wisconsin is the only state in the nation that has not postponed its April elections. Even Republican-led states such as Georgia, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Wyoming moved up their primary elections out of concern for the safety of their citizens.

The one variable that Republicans cannot control — the weather — worked against them. The unseasonable day was mostly clear with temperatures reaching the mid-70s, about 15 degrees above normal. It was a great day to be outdoors.

With their despicable moves to erect such perilous barriers to voting, Republican legislators and courts have sunk to the Mariana Trench of partisanship and voter suppression.

But there is a big election yet to come this year. Wisconsinites of both parties should deliver Republicans a healthy dose of karma at the polls in November.

How could anyone vote for a party that would rather kill them than lose an election?

Editor's note: This piece was updated to correct the number of Wisconsin Supreme Court justices and to differentiate the cases decided by the state Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court. The quote from Sherrilyn Ifill was also added.