WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated the requirement that South Carolina residents who voted by mail in the November election have a witness to sign their ballots.
Democrats tried to lift the demand because of the coronavirus pandemic, but Republicans defended it as a deterrent to fraud.
Although the court has reinstated the requirement as the process continues, voters have begun to return ballots. More than 200,000 absentee ballots have been sent and 18,000 returned, according to the state electoral commission.
The court said that any votes cast before the court’s action on Monday night “and received within two days of this order cannot be rejected for failing to comply with the witness requirement”
State Republican President Drew McKissick applauded the decision. “Despite Democrats’ efforts to hijack a pandemic and use it to interfere with our electoral laws, they have lost,” he said in a statement. “We are pleased that the Supreme Court has reinstated the requirement to sign witnesses and recognized its importance in helping to prevent electoral fraud.”
State Democratic Party president Trav Robertson expressed disappointment at the decision. “Our hope is that no one will catch COVID-19 trying to find a witness. We are disappointed, but the elections have consequences, ”he said in a statement.
South Carolina has required witnesses for absentee voters since 1953. Under current law, voters who return ballots by mail take an oath printed on the return envelope that confirms that they are eligible to vote and that the ballot inside is theirs, among other things . The oath must be witnessed by someone else who must sign below the voter’s signature and write his address.
Pointing to the coronavirus pandemic, state and national Democratic organizations and several individual voters challenged the requirement and other parts of the state’s electoral law. And a judge blocked the demand for a witness before the state primaries in June.
After the primaries and the response to the pandemic, state lawmakers made changes to the state’s electoral law, including allowing all residents to vote absent in November. But they left the testimony requirement in place.
US District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs, appointed by President Barack Obama, at the end of last month put the witness requirement on hold for the presidential election. She wrote that this may increase the risk of some voters contracting the virus and require other voters already infected with the virus to present witnesses.
A panel of three judges from the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit reinstated the requirement before the entire appeals court reversed the course and put it on hold again.
As is typical when the Federal Supreme Court acts on an emergency basis, ministers did not explain their decision. But Judge Brett Kavanaugh, writing only for himself, said he agreed with this for two reasons. He said it was not for a court to question the decision of lawmakers to maintain the demand for a witness during the pandemic. And he said that for many years the Supreme Court “emphasized that federal courts should not normally change state electoral rules in the run-up to an election.”
Three other judges – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – allegedly demanded that the ballots that have already been returned have the signature of a witness for counting.
The Supreme Court recently handled other cases involving electoral witness requirements for the November election. In Rhode Island, the court maintained a settlement by state officials to allow residents to vote by mail without obtaining the signatures of two witnesses or a notary. But in Alabama, where a court has suspended the requirement that voters have their absentee ballot certified or witnessed by two adults in three major counties, the judges have reinstated it.
Approximately a dozen states require that voting envelopes be signed by one or more witnesses or a notary.
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Associated Press editor Michelle Liu of Columbia, South Carolina contributed to this report.