RBG slams Republicans for allowing Wisconsin primary to proceed as state official warns voters are being consigned ‘to their deaths’

'The question here is whether tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens can vote safely in the midst of a pandemic'

The Supreme Court’s refusal to extend absentee voting in Wisconsin ahead of the state’s election on Tuesday would lead to “massive disenfranchisement”, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in a fiery dissent aimed at her conservative colleagues.

The liberal justice said the court’s 5-4 ruling on Monday puts public health at further risk as the state grapples with an outbreak of the novel coronavirus. The Supreme Court ruled against Democratic efforts to extend absentee voting by six days and also overruled Governor Tony Evers’ executive order earlier in the day to delay the state elections to June in a separate 4-2 decision.

“The question here is whether tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens can vote safely in the midst of a pandemic,” Ms Ginsburg wrote in her dissent, joined by the court’s three other liberal justices. “With the majority’s stay in place, that will not be possible. Either they will have to brave the polls, endangering their own and others’ safety. Or they will lose their right to vote, through no fault of their own.”

“That is a matter of utmost importance — to the constitutional rights of Wisconsin’s citizens, the integrity of the State’s election process, and in this most extraordinary time, the health of the Nation,” she continued. “While I do not doubt the good faith of my colleagues, the Court’s order, I fear, will result in massive disenfranchisement.”

Ms Ginsburg also acknowledged the state’s failure to mail out absentee ballots to all of its residents who are registered to vote — another Democratic effort blocked by Wisconsin Republicans.

“A voter cannot deliver for postmarking a ballot she has not received,” she wrote. “Yet tens of thousands of voters who timely requested ballots are unlikely to receive them by [7 April], the Court’s postmark deadline.”

Democrats at the state and national level have meanwhile lambasted Republicans over their efforts to go forward with the in-person state election, which includes the 2020 Democratic presidential primary vote. ​

In a statement, Wisconsin’s Democratic Party chairman Ben Wikler said the Supreme Court’s decision was made “following Trump team’s orders” and would ultimately “disenfranchise untold thousands of Wisconsin voters”.

By having voters partake in the in-person election on Tuesday, the court was consigning “an unknown number of Wisconsinites to their deaths”, Mr Wikler wrote.

Donald Trump has encouraged voters to partake in Tuesday’s elections, posting an endorsement on Tuesday for a Republican candidate for the state’s Supreme Court. He also previously suggested the state’s Democratic governor was attempting to delay the elections because he had endorsed a Republican in the race.

Bernie Sanders also slammed Republicans in the state for allowing the vote to proceed, saying in a statement that the decision “may very well prove deadly”.

“It's outrageous that the Republican legislative leaders and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court in Wisconsin are willing to risk the health and safety of many thousands of Wisconsin voters tomorrow for their own political gain”, the Vermont senator and 2020 presidential candidate wrote in a tweet.

Over 10,000 people in the US have died due to the novel virus, according to data published on Monday, as state officials continued battling over the imminent in-person vote. The back-and-forth inevitably caused chaos and confusion for voters, as poll workers reported concerns of putting their health at risk by partaking in the state elections.