• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. ballot witness>

South Carolina ballot curbs revived by Supreme Court as roster of hot cases grows

David Hawkings
October 06, 2020
South Carolina voting
filo/Getty Images

The Supreme Court has reinstated witness requirements for mail-in ballots in South Carolina, furthering its nearly uninterrupted string of decisions against relaxed burdens on voting during the coronavirus pandemic.

Monday night's ruling brings to eight cases, out of nine considered this year, where the justices have come down on the side of making elections more complicated or restrictive rather than simpler and more open. Several more appeals are sure to be considered before the presidential contest ends in four weeks — including a ruling likely this week on whether ballots delayed in the mail in tossup Pennsylvania up to three days beyond Election Day should still count.

And lower state and federal courts continue to order more easements — some of which could also end up before the Supreme Court. Just Monday, judges put a halt on the witness mandate for mail ballots in Alaska, extended the registration deadline in battleground Arizona and relaxed absentee ballot rules in tossup Iowa.

These are details of the latest developments:


South Carolina

The high court reversed lower federal appeals and trial courts, which concluded the requirement that a mail ballot be countersigned should be suspended this fall because it would otherwise disenfranchise South Carolinians — by conditioning their ability to vote absentee on doing what physicians counsel against and coming in close physical contact with someone else.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The court did allow the tabulating of ballots already returned without a witness signature or already in the mail — although Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said those should be rejected as well.

It was the first Supreme Court ruling in an election case in eight weeks, since the primaries ended and since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The most recent, in August, was also about witness requirements but it is the only one where the court has come down on the side of easier voting this year. And that was only because, the justices said, the state of Rhode Island had agreed to relax its own rules in order to settle a lawsuit.

In South Carolina, by contrast, the Legislature just weeks ago had rejected a proposal to abandon the witness rule. That was one reason it should be allowed to remain, wrote Brett Kavanaugh, the only justice who offered a rationale for the court's decision

The other reason is similar to what has undergirded most of the other decisions this year allowing restrictive election rules to remain.

The Supreme Court "has repeatedly emphasized that federal courts ordinarily should not alter state election rules in the period close to an election," he wrote, citing what has become known as the Purcell Principle, a reference to a 14-year-old decision that an appeals court had waited too close to Election Day before striking down Arizona's voter ID law.

The ruling will change the rules for more than 150,000 ballots already mailed to voters. Although President Trump can count on the state's nine electoral votes, it is now hosting one of the most surprisingly competitive Senate races in the nation — between incumbent Republican Lindsey Graham and former state Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison.

Alaska

Finding a witness for mailed ballots in a pandemic "impermissibly burdens the right to vote," Superior Court Judge Dani Crosby said in ordering the state to quickly figure out how to tell voters they can skip the requirement in November.

Instead state officials signaled they would appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court, arguing the witness rule prevents fraud and that changing requirements so close to the election would cause unfair voter confusion. Ballot envelopes describing the requirement have already been printed.

The judge said there was no evidence the witness requirement had helped detect cheaters and that there are plenty of ways to educate voters the rule has been suspended.

The case was brought by Arctic Village Council, a tribal government, and two people who said they were too sick to find a witness.

Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma and Virginia have voluntarily relaxed notary or witness signature requirements for the year.

Trump seems assured of the state's three electoral votes, but the GOP is working harder than expected to hold a Senate seat and the state's single House seat.

Arizona

The period for registering to vote in the state was to have ended Monday. But federal Judge Steven Logan of Phoenix extended the deadline 18 days, until Oct. 23, saying the added time was necessary to help in-person registration efforts stymied by fears of Covid-19. Online registration is insufficient, he said, because so many Arizonans lack easy or affordable access to the internet.

The Republican National Committee has already filed its appeal, arguing the pandemic was not the sort of big burden on voter registration drives described by the plaintiffs, Mi Familia Vota and Arizona Coalition for Change.

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, also opposed moving the deadline, warning it would create too much work for local clerks because early in-person voting begins Wednesday — and huge complications fulfilling mail-in ballot applications that are part of new registration forms.

Arizona is one of the 15 states that have deadlines a month before Election Day. At the other end of the spectrum, 19 states allow citizens to both register and cast ballots on Election Day.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is ahead in the race for the state's 11 electoral votes, several recent polls show, and would be the first Democrat to carry the state in six elections. Republican Sen. Martha McSally has become an underdog in her race for reelection against the Democratic candidate, former astronaut Mark Kelly.

Iowa

State Judge Robert Hanson said it was fine for county officials to fill in the name and address lines on absentee ballot applications before sending them to the voters who requested the forms.

That has been long-standing practice in much of the state, where voting by mail has not been widely used before this year. But the surge of remote voting because of the pandemic prompted Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, to tell the local officials this summer they could send only blank applications. Predictably, he cited possible fraud as his rationale. Just as predictably, Democrats then sued.

"It completely escapes this court how the fairness and uniformity of the absentee ballot-application process could possibly be threatened by allowing county auditors to simply continue practices they had been following for some time," the judge ruled, and there is an "almost complete" lack of evidence more absentee voting would result in increased voter fraud.

Monday was the first day for early in-person voting in Iowa and the first day for sending out requested absentee ballots — more than 633,000 so far, smashing state records in large measure because the state's top two contests are highly competitive. Iowa's six electoral votes are a tossup, as is GOP Sen. Joni Ernst's battle for a second term against Democrat Theresa Greenfield.

From Your Site Articles
  • 34 states are making voting easier, if only for this fall - The Fulcrum ›
  • Judge makes it easier for absentee voting in Alabama - The Fulcrum ›
  • Judge rules N.C. voters must be given a chance to fix absentee ballots ›
  • Pa., N.C., ballot extensions survive at Supreme Court - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Minnesota waives absentee ballot witness signature mandate ›
  • Supreme Court restores South Carolina witness rule for mailed ballots ›
  • SCOTUS Sides With S.C. To Reinstate Witness Signature Mandate ... ›
  • Witnesses aren't needed for absentee voting in Virginia. But the ... ›
ballot witness

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

How a college freshman led the effort to honor titans of democracy reform

Jeremy Garson

Our poisonous age of absolutism

Jay Paterno

Re-imagining Title IX: An opportunity to flex our civic muscles

Lisa Kay Solomon

'Independent state legislature theory' is unconstitutional

Daniel O. Jamison

How afraid are we?

Debilyn Molineaux

Politicians certifying election results is risky and unnecessary

Kevin Johnson
latest News

How the anti-abortion movement shaped campaign finance law and paved the way for Trump

Amanda Becker, The 19th
10h

Podcast: Journalist and political junkie Ken Rudin

Our Staff
11h

A study in contrasts: Low-turnout runoffs vs. Alaska’s top-four, all-mail primary

David Meyers
23 June

Video: Team Democracy Urges Citizens to Sign SAFE Pledge

Our Staff
23 June

Podcast: Past, present, future

Our Staff
23 June

Video: America's vulnerable elections

Our Staff
22 June
Videos

Video: Memorial Day 2022

Our Staff

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Bridge Alliance intern Sachi Bajaj speaks at the June 12 Civvy Awards.

How a college freshman led the effort to honor titans of democracy reform

Leadership
abortion law historian Mary Ziegler

How the anti-abortion movement shaped campaign finance law and paved the way for Trump

Campaign Finance
Podcast: Journalist and political junkie Ken Rudin

Podcast: Journalist and political junkie Ken Rudin

Media
Abortion rights and anti-abortion protestors at the Supreme Court

Our poisonous age of absolutism

Big Picture
Virginia primary voter

A study in contrasts: Low-turnout runoffs vs. Alaska’s top-four, all-mail primary

Video: Team Democracy Urges Citizens to Sign SAFE Pledge

Video: Team Democracy Urges Citizens to Sign SAFE Pledge

Voting