What I feared would happen has happened. The Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision handed down Monday, denied an appeal of a Circuit Court's decision to overturn a Wisconsin district judge's ruling that allowed mail-in ballots to be counted up to six days after the election so long as they were postmarked by election day. Adding insult to injury, the decision was written by none other than Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The long and short of this decision is that any mail-in ballots that arrive after the deadline on November 3 will not be counted. Period. End of story.
The decision was a major blow for Democrats who have been arguing that ballots that are postmarked by election day should be counted even if they arrive several days later. Make no mistake about it, this decision will have repercussions for other swing states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina where similar extensions are now allowed, and will undoubtedly be challenged and successfully overturned. It's all but inevitable.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler quickly responded to the decision by issuing the following statement. "The Democratic Party of Wisconsin will double down on making sure that every Wisconsin voter knows how to exercise their right to vote in the final eight days of this election." If the Democratic Parties of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and other swing states know what's good for them they will issue similar statements, and fast, because time is running out.
Here's the thing. Of the more than 86 million mail-in ballots that have been requested, only about half have been returned, leaving 43 million ballots outstanding. Thanks to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's efforts to sabotage the US Post Office earlier this year, delays in mail delivery could imperil the arrival of a good chunk of those ballots. And that will all but guarantee Trump's reelection.
It is time for Democratic leaders to light a fire under their voters. They must urge them NOT to mail in their ballots going forward if they haven't already done so. Instead, they should bring their completed ballots to a designated drop box in their neighborhood or vote in person. As I wrote in an earlier piece, requesting a mail-in ballot does not disqualify someone from voting in person. So long as they don't vote twice, it's perfectly legal.
I realize that voting in person during a pandemic could pose a risk for people with underlying medical conditions, but that is the predicament that we face right now. While early voting has favored Democrats, Republican voters will almost certainly show up in droves on election day. If Democrats don't have enough votes banked by then, they can kiss any hopes they have of taking back the White House and the Senate goodbye. All the reliable polling in the world won't mean a thing if all the ballots don't get counted.
How bad is this potentially? Consider that in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina, less than half the mail-in ballots have been returned. Given that Pennsylvania has no early in-person voting, those who choose not to mail in their ballots or deposit them in drop boxes will have to endure long lines in order to cast their votes. That may be fine in counties like Erie or Lancaster, but in a city like Philadelphia, it will mean subjecting people to unnecessary risks that could cost them their very lives.
Look, I don't like what's happened here anymore than you, but no one can say it was unexpected. Democrats should've anticipated this would happen and been proactive from the start. They should've warned their voters ahead of time to get their ballots in the mail as early as possible. With Mitch McConnell fast-tracking the appointments of 200 judges to the judiciary, and the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, conservatives now have a solid 6 to 3 majority. Looking to this court for a remedy is the height of naïveté.
But as bad as this decision was, it could've been far worse. The Court could've issued its ruling the day before the election. At least there's still time to avert a disaster, but only if Democrats act now and avoid the temptation to play the victim card, which they do so well.
To reiterate, Democrats should NOT mail in their ballots if they haven't already done so. They need to take them to drop boxes or simply vote in person. Above all else, we can not allow this president and his surrogates to get away with stealing this election.
Just the other day at one of his super spreader rallies, he attacked the governor of Pennsylvania over alleged fraudulent ballots in Philadelphia, even going so far as to threaten the withholding of federal funding that is badly needed to deal with the pandemic. Only a few days before that, while in Michigan, he went after governor Gretchen Whitmer for imposing restrictions aimed at stopping the spread of the virus. Whitmer had recently been the target of a kidnapping plot by a white supremacist group. What kind of sociopath does something like this?
Twenty years ago, the Supreme Court, in one of the worst decision ever handed down, saddled us with the presidency of George W. Bush. We've never fully recovered as a nation from his disastrous policies, both domestic and foreign. But as inept as Bush was, at least the institutions of government were still intact when he left office. If Trump wins a second term, those institutions will almost certainly fail.
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