Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20a66_new_m6io.pdf
Page Number: 25.0

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DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE v. WISCONSIN 
STATE LEGISLATURE 
KAGAN, J., dissenting 

Wisconsin is one of the hottest of all COVID hotspots in the 
Nation.  So rather than vote in person, many Wisconsinites 
will  again  choose  to  vote  by  mail.    State  election  officials 
report that 1.7 million people—about 50 percent of Wiscon-
sin’s voters—have already asked for mail ballots.  And more 
are expected to do so, because state law gives voters until 
October 29, five days before Election Day, to make that re-
quest.    
  To ensure that these mail ballots are counted, the district 
court  ordered  in  September  the  same  relief  afforded  in 
April:  a  six-day  extension  of  the  receipt  deadline  for  mail 
ballots postmarked by Election Day.  The court supported 
that order with specific facts and figures about how COVID 
would affect the electoral process in Wisconsin.  See Demo-
cratic National Committee v. Bostelmann, ___ F. Supp. 3d 
___,  ___–___,  ___–___,  ___,  2020  WL  5627186,  *6–*7,  *9–
*10, *21 (WD Wis., Sept. 21, 2020).  The court found that 
the  surge  in  requests  for  mail  ballots  would  overwhelm 
state officials in the weeks leading up to the October 29 bal-
lot-application deadline.  And it discovered unusual delays 
in the United States Postal Service’s delivery of mail in the 
State.  The combination of those factors meant, as a high-
ranking  elections  official  testified,  that  a  typical  ballot 
would take a full two weeks “to make its way through the 
mail from a clerk’s office to a voter and back again”—even 
when  the  voter  instantly  turns  the  ballot  around.    Id.,  at 
___,  n. 10, 2020 WL 5627186, *5, n. 10.  Based on the April 
election experience, the court determined that many voters 
would not even receive mail ballots by Election Day, making 
it impossible to vote in that way.  And as many as 100,000 
citizens would not have their votes counted—even though 
timely requested and postmarked—without the six-day ex-
tension.  (To put that number in perspective, a grand total 
of 284 Wisconsin mail ballots were not counted in the 2016