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10  DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE v. WISCONSIN 
STATE LEGISLATURE 
KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

of open-ended balancing test in this case.  But even on its 
own terms, the dissent’s balancing analysis is faulty, in my 
respectful view. 
  Start  by  considering  the  implications  of  the  dissent’s 
analysis.  In reinstating the District Court’s order extend-
ing Wisconsin’s deadline for receipt of absentee ballots, the 
dissent’s approach would necessarily invalidate (or at least 
call into question) the laws of approximately 30 States for 
the upcoming election and compel all of those States to ac-
cept absentee ballots received after election day.  The dis-
sent’s de facto green light to federal courts to rewrite dozens 
of state election laws around the country over the next two 
weeks  seems  to  be  rooted  in  a  belief  that  federal  judges 
know  better  than  state  legislators  about  how  to  run  elec-
tions during a pandemic.  But over the last several months, 
this  Court  has  consistently  rejected  that  federal-judges-
know-best vision of election administration. 
  The dissent does not fully come to grips with the destabi-
lizing  consequences  of  its  analysis,  saying  that  the  facts 
may differ in other States.  But the key facts underlying the 
District Court’s injunction are similar in other States: the 
existence  of  the  virus  and  its  effects  on  election  workers, 
voters,  mail  systems,  and  in-person  voting.    The  dissent’s 
claim  that  its  reasoning  would  not  necessarily  invalidate 
the  absentee-ballot  deadlines  of  approximately  30  other 
States therefore rings hollow.   
  Turning  to  the  dissent’s  balancing  analysis, the  dissent 
does  not  sufficiently  appreciate  the  necessity  of  deadlines 
in  elections,  and  does  not  sufficiently  account  for  all  the 
steps that Wisconsin has already taken to help voters meet 
those deadlines. 
  The dissent claims that the State’s election-day deadline 
for  receipt  of  absentee  ballots  will  “disenfranchise”  some 
Wisconsin voters.  But that is not what a reasonable elec-
tion  deadline  does.    This  Court  has  long  explained  that  a 
State’s election deadline does not disenfranchise voters who