Delaware's early voting, mail-in ballot rules reinstated with latest Supreme Court ruling
Delaware will see the return of in-person early voting and permanent absentee voter registration in time for the 2024 election cycle after the Delaware Supreme Court invalidated a lower court ruling from earlier this year that struck down these systems.
The Friday ruling opens the door for Delaware to resume in this fall's elections a relatively new practice of allowing individuals to visit a polling place and cast ballots days ahead of Election Day, as well as a longstanding system that allowed state residents who are disabled, who may be on military duty or have some other reason to be outside of Delaware to register as a permanent absentee voter.
In a press release after the ruling, officials for the Department of Elections confirmed that early, in-person voting as well as absentee voting, including permanent absentee registration, will be available for the September state primary and November general election.
Prompted by a lawsuit from conservative interests, a Superior Court judge ruled in February that the state laws enabling those practices conflicted with the state's constitution, which includes specific language for how elections are to be held.
Attorneys led by Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings appealed the ruling, which led to Friday's Supreme Court action overturning the February ruling. In a written statement, Jennings called the challenges to the state's voting laws, "thinly-veiled partisan attempts to suppress votes."
Previous reporting: Delaware attorney general to appeal recent ruling striking down early voting
"I’m grateful to the Court for its ruling and for agreeing to hear this case on an expedited basis so that Delawareans know their rights going into the September and November elections," Jennings said through a spokesperson.
In the last election, 56,000 Delawareans used early voting, according to Department of Elections data. Roughly 21,000 voters used permanent absentee ballots.
Those people include veterans, the disabled and caregivers, Jennings has said. And she's noted that 46 other states allow early voting and 25 others have "stronger permanent absentee protections than we do."
What does the ruling say?
The Supreme Court's ruling, litigated in an expedited fashion during this election year, ruled that the plaintiffs that had successfully petitioned the lower court to invalidate the state's voting laws based on the constitutional claim did not have proper standing to bring that challenge.
The ruling does not address the constitutional issues cited by the lower court, opening up the potential for further litigation by different plaintiffs.
The decision centers on the justices finding that the plaintiffs failed to show an "imminent or particularized harm" and thus did not have standing to challenge the state's voting statutes.
The plaintiffs were a person who hoped to serve as an election inspector during this year's elections, as well as former Republican State Senator Gerald Hocker, the Senate's minority-party leader who also voted in favor of the state's permanent absentee voter law when it passed the General Assembly more than a decade ago.
Why is this being challenged?
The fight over these two aspects of Delaware's voting laws comes as state Democrats have sought to pass laws to make voting easier. The state has historically had relatively restrictive voting laws compared to others with strong Democrat majorities. And this isn't the only court fight that has seen some of those changes invalidated.
A 2022 decision by the state's Supreme Court struck down lawmakers' recent efforts to allow anyone registered to vote to cast a ballot by mail and to allow people to register to vote up until Election Day.
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Earlier this year, Democrats in the Delaware General Assembly ran legislation that sought to amend the state's constitution to cure the legal defects that saw the courts strike down rules that allowed anyone registered to vote to cast a ballot by mail. Absent that law, only those with an excuse deemed valid may vote by mail.
The legislation passed the state Senate in May, but failed to pass the House earlier this month. Constitutional amendments require a higher bar to pass, and the bill failed to get adequate backing from Republicans. One Democrat, Rep. Melissa Minor Brown, voted against it.
In a statement after this story published, a spokesperson for Minor Brown explained that her vote was changed to "no" due to a technical aspect of the legislature's rules so the bill could be raised again after it failed - and not because she did not support the measure.
Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware early voting, mail-in ballot rules restored by Supreme Court
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