A divided Supreme Court said Monday that ballots in Wisconsin could be counted only if they are received by Election Day amidst the pandemic, dealing a victory to the Republican-led Wisconsin state legislature.
The vote was 5-3, @Arianedevogue reports.

Democrats in Wisconsin had asked the court to allow the counting of ballots that arrive up to six days after Election Day if they were postmarked by Election Day.

A federal appeals court had ruled in favor of the Republicans.

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by her liberal colleagues, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer dissented from the court’s order. “As the COVID pandemic rages,” Kagan wrote, “the Court has failed to adequately protect the Nation’s voters.”

Quoting an  order penned by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kagan said that voters must now opt between “braving the polls with all the risk that entails , and losing their right to vote.”

Democrats lawyers argued ”confidence in Wisconsin’s electoral process will be shattered if tens of thousands of valid, timely cast absentee ballots are not counted because they arrived 2 or 3days after the election due to mail delays & other factors beyond the voters’ control.“

A lawyer for the Republican-led legislature said that the state laws were “exceedingly generous” and fell squarely within “its broad authority to keep or make changes to election rules to address Covid-19.”