Minnesota GOP Points to Wisconsin Ruling in Mail-In Voting Fight
Minnesota GOP Points to Wisconsin Ruling in Mail-In Voting Fight
(Bloomberg) -- Minnesota Republicans are looking to neighboring Wisconsin to fight a plan to accept mail-in ballots that arrive after Nov. 3 -- even if they are postmarked by Election Day.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon in July extended the deadline for accepting mail-in votes until a week after Election Day and scrapped rules requiring voters to have witnesses sign absentee ballots, the use of which is expected to surge due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter to a federal judge Thursday, a Minnesota state legislator and a voter who were selected by the Republican Party to be electors in the 2020 presidential election, pointed out that a similar plan for accepting ballots in Wisconsin had just been shot down by a federal appeals court.
The Republican electors, who sued over Simon’s plan on Sept. 22., told U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel that she should adopt the reasoning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which held that “the design of electoral procedures is a legislative task” and that there’s no reason to believe that “any person who wants to avoid voting in person on Election Day would be unable to cast a ballot in Wisconsin by planning ahead.”
Brasel, who sits in St. Paul, Minnesota, could take the ruling into account, but it’s not binding on her. Though it borders Wisconsin, Minnesota falls under the jurisdiction of the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Missouri, rather than the Chicago-based 7th Circuit.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that increased mail-in voting will lead to widespread ballot fraud, and Republicans have filed lawsuits nationwide trying to restrict its use. Minnesota’s plan appeared to be in the clear after the state GOP and the Republican National Committee dropped their appeal of an earlier case they’d filed to block the plan on the grounds that it would lead to voter fraud.
Minnesota narrowly went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and the Trump campaign has said it wants to flip the state in 2020.
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