Wisconsin Supreme Court Orders Voting Back On for Tuesday. What’s Next?

The state Supreme Court split along ideological (essentially party) lines 4-2 (with one Justice on the ballot recused) in rejecting Gov. Evers’ order suspending the election. The court kept only that part of the order calling a special legislative session tomorrow, but that session could be simply gaveled to a close without action.

So what’s next? There are a number of city orders, including in Milwaukee, keeping polling places closed. There may have to be state or federal court action to reopen them if this is not rescinded. If they stay closed, this could be a basis to go back to federal court and claim the election was not conducted constitutionally. (The federal court kept that door open in an earlier ruling.)

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court should rule soon on the absentee ballot extension issue. I presume they were waiting to see if the state supreme court would have kept them out of this mess. With that gone, I expect we will see a ruling, with a dissent and perhaps some concurrences. As with the state Supreme Court, the Court itself could issue a ruling without giving any rationale for the decision (a practice I have long condemned—I think the rationales should come at a later time to justify these “shadow docket” decisions). Update: I see that the Wisconsin supreme court promises opinions to follow. That’s good.

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