The Supreme Court declined to reinstate an earlier district court ruling forcing Texas officials to provide mail-in ballots to all voters in the state.
The high court rejected a request from the Texas Democratic Party on Friday to override a decision issued by a panel of judges on the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which placed a stay on a district court order that extended mail-in voting provisions to Texans.
“The application to vacate stay presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the Supreme Court’s rejection read.
Liberal Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama nominee, did not disagree with the high court’s determination but noted that the case raises notable questions about the 26th Amendment to the Constitution.
“This application raises weighty but seemingly novel questions regarding the Twenty-Sixth Amendment,” she wrote in a statement. “I do not disagree with the decision to refrain from addressing them for the first time here, in the context of an emergency application to vacate a stay of an injunction. But I hope that the Court of Appeals will consider the merits of the legal issues in this case well in advance of the November election.”
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ruled against Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration in May, writing that “under pandemic circumstances” all Texas voters are eligible to request mail-in ballots for the state’s upcoming primary and general elections.
“For those who have recently awakened from a Rip Van Winkle sleep, the entire world is mostly without immunity and fearfully disabled,” Biery wrote in his decision.
The decision was appealed by the state’s Republican leaders, and a panel of judges for the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court unanimously decided that the election decision should be left in the hands of Texas officials. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that Biery’s decision posed “irreparable injury” to Texas “by injecting substantial confusion into the Texas voting process mere days before ballots are distributed and weeks before runoff elections.”
The high court’s decision means Texas rules on qualifying for ballots will remain in place for the state’s July 14 primary runoff election.
Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said he was “disappointed” that the Supreme Court did not “provide needed relief and clarity” for voters amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are disappointed that the Supreme Court did not weigh in now and provide needed relief and clarity for voters ahead of the primary runoff,” Hinojosa said. “The case proceeds on in other filings before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit and therefore, hope remains that the federal courts will restore equal voting rights in time for the November elections.”
