A Federal Appeals Court Panel ruled, Thursday Oct. 29th evening, that Minnesota must Reject Ballots received after Polls Close on Election Day, upending the State’s Plan to Count Absentee Ballots received up to Seven Days after the Election so long as they were Postmarked on Election Day.
The Decision by a Three-Judge Panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit said Lower Courts had gone too far in Assessing that Minnesota’s Legislature had Delegated Authority to the Secretary of State to Change Election Practices to Deal with Emergencies.
“Simply put, the Secretary has no power to override the Minnesota Legislature,” the Opinion states. “However well-intentioned and appropriate from a policy perspective in the context of a pandemic during a presidential election . . . there is no pandemic exception to the Constitution.”
Under the 2-to-1 ruling, Minnesota can Only accept Absentee Ballots received by Mail by 8 p.m. on Election Day, or before 3 p.m. if Voters deliver them In-Person.
Minnesota Secretary of State, Steve Simon, said a ruling against the State could Disenfranchise an Unknown number of State Voters. Simon said Thursday evening that nearly 400,000 Ballots have still Not been Returned.
“I had hoped and reasoned that if the 8th Circuit was going to change a vitally significant deadline, like acceptance of ballots — if they were inclined to do that, I would hope they would have done it an hour after the hearing, even if it was a one-line order,” Simon said before the ruling. “It would be tremendously disruptive at this point . . . to issue an order overturning Minnesota’s postmark rule.”
In a Statement Thursday night, Simon called the ruling a “tremendous and unnecessary disruption” and said Republicans who brought the Case were trying to Sabotage the State’s Election. He said his Office was considering its Legal Options, including Appealing to the Supreme Court. “My mission now is to make sure all voters know that a federal court has suddenly changed the rules, and that their ballots need to be received by Election Day.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) went further Thursday evening, urging Constituents Not to Mail their Ballots. “Because of LAST MINUTE ruling, Minnesota DO NOT put ballots in mail any more,” she tweeted, blaming Republicans. “Vote in-person or take mail-in ballot directly to ballot box.”
The Case was brought by Republican State Rep. Eric Lucero and Minnesota GOP Activist, James Carson. In Oral Arguments Tuesday, their Attorney, Andrew Grossman, argued Minnesota was Courting “chaos” by Planning to continue Counting Votes until Nov. 10th. “We are trying to solve that problem now, when voters still have a chance to cast timely ballots,” Grossman said, equating votes that come in after Election Day to ballot-box stuffing.
Lucero and Carson would be Injured, Grossman argued, because accepting every Ballot “dilutes their votes as a matter of pure arithmetic: When the vote pool goes up, the weight of their individual votes goes down.”
Judge, Bobby Shepherd, an Appointee of President George W. Bush, and Judge L. Steven Grasz, Appointed by Trump, formed the Majority. Judge, Jane Kelly, Appointed by President Barack Obama, Dissented.
The Ruling leaves Open the Possibility that another Court could Overturn its Decision, directing a Lower Court to issue Guidance for Minnesota to set aside Ballots Received after Election Day in case they can later be Counted.
“The consequences of this order are not lost on us,” stated the Opinion by Shepherd and Grasz. “With that said, we conclude the challenges that will stem from this ruling are preferable to a post-election scenario where mail-in votes, received after the statutory deadline, are either intermingled with ballots received on time or invalidated without prior warning. Better to put those voters on notice now while they still have at least some time to adjust their plans and cast their votes in an unquestionably lawful way.”
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
No comments:
Post a Comment