Wisconsin Republicans say they will ask Supreme Court to block extended absentee voting

The Wisconsin Republican Party has requested that the U.S. Supreme Court block extended absentee voting in the state’s presidential primary scheduled for Tuesday.

Many other states who were supposed to have primaries in April have rescheduled them for a later date due to the coronavirus pandemic, but Wisconsin is still slated to go through with its election as planned.

Despite coronavirus concerns, a district court refused to cancel the primary, but extended absentee voting until April 13. State Republicans initially appealed the court’s decision to extend absentee voting to a federal court of appeals but their appeal was declined. 

The GOP members believe that the election, including in-person voting, should happen on Tuesday and that absentee ballot deadline should not be extended to the middle of April. 

“During the past couple of weeks, Democrats have repeatedly asked courts to change our election laws and created chaos in our democratic process. While the courts have repeatedly rejected nearly all of their demands, the district court in Wisconsin has allowed absentee ballots to be collected even past the April 7th election, which is a relief that the plaintiffs never even requested,” party chairman Andrew Hitt said in a statement.

“We have asked the United States Supreme Court to grant an emergency stay to prevent voting after election day, which dramatically changes our election laws on the eve of an election,” he continued.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) has proposed that the extension for absentee voting be pushed back even further than mid-April to late May. On Friday, the governor signed an executive order forcing the state legislature to meet in a special session Saturday to send ballots to all registered voters through the mail and allow ballots to be mailed in by May 26. Evers has said that he doesn’t have the power to cancel the election unilaterally.

Milwaukee city officials have said that they only have enough poll workers to operate five in-person polling stations, according to The Associated Press.