SCOTUS rejects request to allow all Texas voters to use mail-in ballots
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The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an emergency application to allow all voters in Texas to use mail-in ballots.
The Supreme Court rejected a request Friday to reinstate an order by U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of San Antonio that allowed any Texas voter to vote by absentee ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic, report the New York Times and SCOTUSblog.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans had blocked Biery’s injunction allowing mail-in voting, saying the judge’s order “will be remembered more for audacity than legal reasoning.”
Texas allows voting by mail for voters who are age 65 or older, who have a disability, who will be absent during the election or who are incarcerated. Democrats had argued that discrimination based on age for mail-in ballots violates the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18.
In a statement, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she didn’t disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision to refrain from addressing the ballot issue in the context of the emergency application.
“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,” she wrote.
