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1 Election Modifications in Wisconsin because of a Pandemic 1 (2021)

handle is hein.congcourts/fjcelwis0001 and id is 1 raw text is: CASE STUDIES IN EMERGENCY ELECTION LITIGATION Election Modifications in Wisconsin Because of a Pandemic Democratic National Committee v. Bostelmann (3:20-cv-249), Gear v. Knudson (3:20-cv-278), and Lewis v. Knudson (3:20-cv-284) (William M. Conley, W.D. Wis.) and City of Green Bay v. Bostelmann (William C. Griesbach, 1:20-cv-479) and Taylor v. Milwaukee Election Comm'n (Pamela Pepper, 2:20-cv-545) (E.D. Wis.) In light of a global infectious pandemic, federal litigation to modify election procedures for the April 2020 election in Wisconsin, which included a presidential primary election, began about three weeks before the election. Shortly after a complaint was filed, and again a few days before the election, a federal judge in the Western District of Wisconsin ordered some modifications to enable absentee voting by mail. The judge declined to order a delay in the election. The court of appeals reversed the district judge's modification to absen- tee voter witness certification requirements, and the Supreme Court reversed the district judge's extension of time to mail absentee bal- lots after election day. Suits in the Eastern District were unsuccess- ful. For the general election in November, the Western District judge again ordered modifications, but the court of appeals stayed the injunction. Subject: Absentee and early voting. Topics: COVID-19; registration procedures; absentee ballots; enjoining elections; interlocutory appeal; voter identification; intervention; primary election; voting technology; case assignment; class action. Federal courts gave Wisconsin voters limited relief to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 voting. Western District of Wisconsin Twenty days before an April 7, 2020, election in Wisconsin that included a presidential primary election, at a time when the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was in the first few months of a global infectious pandemic, the Democratic Party sought from the U.S. District Court for the Western Dis- trict of Wisconsin injunctive relief that would make it easier to vote by mail.1 1. Complaint, Democratic Nat'l Comm. v. Bostelmann, No. 3:20-cv-249 (W.D. Wis. Mar. 18, 2020), D.E. 1 (identifying the plaintiffs as the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin); Democratic Nat'l Comm. v. Bostelmann, 466 F. Supp. 3d 957, 961 (W.D. Wis. 2020); Democratic Nat'l Comm. v. Bostelmann, 447 F. Supp. 3d 757, 761 (W.D. Wis. 2020); see Nick Corasaniti & Stephanie Saul, Democrats Sue Wisconsin Over Early Voting, N.Y. Times, Mar. 19, 2020, at A23. See generally As Other States Look On, Wis- consin Plows Ahead with Troubled Election, Milwaukee J. Sentinel, Apr. 4, 2020, at A8 (re- porting that Wisconsin was holding not just a presidential primary but general election contests for state Supreme Court and hundreds of local offices, including mayor of Milwau- kee). Federal Judicial Center 1/27/2021 I

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