U.S. Supreme Court allows easing of Rhode Island voting restrictions

Reuters ^ | August 13, 2020 | Lawrence Hurley

[Coronal]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday left in place a lower-court ruling that relaxes voting restrictions in Rhode Island during the coronavirus pandemic.

The justices rejected an emergency request made by the Republican National Committee and the state’s Republican Party.

The decision means that mail-in ballots will not, as usual, have to be accompanied by the signatures of two witnesses or one notary.

The unsigned order left intact a decision by Rhode Island-based U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy, who ruled on July 30 that the Republican groups had waited too late to intervene in the case. The order said three of the nine justices, conservatives Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, would have granted the request.

[hercuroc]

Rhode Island goes Biden!

[2banana]

Remember when New Jersey democrats replaced Lautenburg way past the deadline?

“Mary McElroy, who ruled on July 30 that the Republican groups had waited too late to intervene in the case.”

[hsmomx3]

Never doubted that for a second.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Rhode Island was always going to go Biden. What are the implications for the rest of us?

[Col Frank Slade]

RI is a corrupt blue state this SCOTUS ruling doesn’t change anything there.

[mkleesma]

This is how it starts.
Smallest state, but sets precedent.
Mail-in ballots, lo-and-behold, Dems win in a landslide.
Then, Civil War.

[Coronal]

To whatever extent other state Republican parties may try to do the same thing, this ruling may affect them as well.

[backwoods-engineer]

OK, so no Republican will EVER be elected in Rhode Island, ever again. So what. After the war, they shouldn’t be allowed to remain a state anyway.

[UnklGene]

My 1st election was in 1960. All the newspapers reported that high voter counts came from the cemeteries.
...can’t keep a good man down!

[Buckeye McFrog]

What, the four or five dollar notary fee was deemed a poll tax?

[alancarp]

“... Republican groups had waited too late to intervene...”

Excuse me, your honor, but you could also argue that the decision to invoke this fraud was done too late in the first place. Under the circumstances, this was probably about as quick as they could have moved.

[jdsteel]

“ This is how it starts.
Smallest state, but sets precedent.
Mail-in ballots, lo-and-behold, Dems win in a landslide.
Then, Civil War.”

Bingo.

[DannyTN]

So this is what I've been saying. We can fight the mail in voting, but we better have plan B. Plan B is to wrap as many controls around the voting as we can.

We lost this over just one control "witness".

But there are other controls that maybe we can get through the legislature or have the courts enforce.

Specifically:

• Controls numbers on ballots,
• Tracking databases on ballots and controls on those tracking databases,
• Ways voters can use those ballot control numbers to review their votes and ensure they were counted correctly both before and after the election.
• Such as publishing the control numbers and the associated vote. Voters can then verify their control number was recorded accurately, and voters can see the full tally of the total vote. Here's a link that shows how prevalent vote by mail elections already are:

  https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/all-mail-elections.aspx

[USCG SimTech]

The Constitution leaving it up to each state on how elections for federal officials was a huge mistake. The founders couldn’t envision such state-wide madness.