The Vote And Voting Problems, Pre-Election Day 2020

Dave Peterson from Milford, Connecticut: Does the Supreme Court decision for South Carolina requiring witness signatures on envelopes also now apply to Connecticut and other states?

Good question, Dave, but no. As you alluded to, the Supreme Court overrode a lower court ruling and reinstated South Carolina’s requirement that absentee ballots be signed by a witness — but it didn’t impose that rule nationwide. As Maya mentioned here the other day, each state sets its own election laws, and most states do not require anyone other than you to sign your absentee ballot. The states that do require witness signatures are Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin. In addition, Alaska, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Virginia normally require witness signatures, but either the state waived that rule due to the pandemic or a court struck it down.

The Washington Post is reporting that at least 33 million Americans have already voted nationally with two weeks to go until Election Day. This amounts to 70 percent of the total number of early votes cast in 2016. Of course, the surge in early voting isn’t a surprise, considering the COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged voters to avoid lines on Election Day and states have expanded early voting availability. Nonetheless, these are historic figures. But as the Post’s analysis cautions, the early vote alone can’t tell us whether there’ll be record-setting overall turnout once all the votes are counted.

Last night, the U.S. Supreme Court finally weighed in on a dispute that’s been at their doorstep for quite some time, and declined a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to halt a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that allowed some mail-in ballots to be counted up to three days after Election Day. The outcome was the result of a 4-4 deadlock on the court with Chief Justice Roberts siding with the three liberal justices, since Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh all noted in the order that they would have granted the stay.

On an immediate level, this means that the extended deadline stands, and more delays in reporting election results in Pennsylvania are likely. But the divided nature of the order also emphasizes just how important the impending confirmation of Judge Barrett could be for future voting rights rulings. It’s very unusual for the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule a state Supreme Court when interpreting its own state constitution (which was the issue in the Pennsylvania case), and the justices in this case didn’t offer any reasoning for their votes. But if Barrett is confirmed, she could be the decisive vote in future disputes along these lines.