Ballotpedia's 2020 Election Help Desk
Welcome to Ballotpedia's Election Help Desk Newsletter. In each issue, we:
- List upcoming election process dates and deadlines
- Detail the changes to election dates and procedures since our last edition
- Track lawsuits from the presidential campaigns and major political parties
- Answer one frequently asked question about the election
We understand you may have questions about what to expect in elections at all levels of government, from the casting of ballots to the certification of final results. We are dedicated to providing you with accurate, objective, and measured answers to those questions.
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Upcoming dates and deadlines
Here are the key deadlines for voter registration, early voting, and absentee/mail-in voting coming up in the next seven days. For coverage of all dates, deadlines, and requirements, click here.
- Voter registration deadlines:
- October 9:
- Idaho (online)
- New York (in-person, mail-in postmarked, online)
- North Carolina (in-person, mail-in postmarked, online)
- Oklahoma (in-person, mail-in postmarked)
- October 10:
- Delaware (in-person, mail-in postmarked, online)
- October 13:
- District of Columbia (mail-in received)
- Kansas (in-person, mail-in postmarked, online)
- Maryland (in-person, mail-in postmarked, online)
- Minnesota (in-person, mail-in received, online)
- New Jersey (in-person, mail-in postmarked)
- Oregon (in-person, mail-in postmarked, online)
- Virginia (in-person, mail-in received, online)
- West Virginia (in-person, mail-in postmarked, online)
- October 14:
- Wisconsin (mail-in postmarked, online)
- Early voting begins:
- October 12:
- October 13:
- October 14:
- Kansas
- Rhode Island
- Tennessee
- October 15:
- Absentee/mail-in voting request deadline:
- October 9:
- October 12:
- October 13:
- Rhode Island (in-person, mail-in received)
- Absentee/mail-in voting return deadline:
Recent news
Here are the changes made to election dates and rules since our last edition, including legal decisions, executive actions, and legislation.
Roundup
- Wisconsin: On Oct. 8, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit voted 2-1 to block a lower court order that had extended registration and absentee/mail-in ballot return deadlines. As a result, these deadlines reverted to their original dates: Oct. 14 for online and mail-in voter registration and Nov. 3 for receipt of completed absentee/mail-in ballots.
On Sept. 21, Judge William M. Conley of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin issued an order extending the absentee/mail-in ballot receipt deadline to Nov. 9 for ballots postmarked on or before Nov. 3. Conley also extended the online and mail-in voter registration deadline to Oct. 21. However, he immediately suspended his ruling pending appeal.
The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature appealed Conley's decision to the Seventh Circuit, which denied the legislature's motion for a stay on Sept. 29, ruling it was "not authorized to represent the state's interest in defending its statutes." The Seventh Circuit later asked the state supreme court to weigh in on the question of whether the Legislature "has the authority to represent the State of Wisconsin's interest in the validity of state laws." The state supreme court ruled the Legislature does have this authority, which prompted the Seventh Circuit to reconsider the appeal.
Judges Frank Easterbrook and Amy St. Eve voted to block Conley's order, citing recent U.S. Supreme Court actions: "The Court has consistently stayed orders by which federal judges have used COVID-19 as a reason to displace the policymaking branches of government. … Deciding how best to cope with difficulties caused by disease is principally a task for the elected branches of government." Easterbrook and St. Eve were appointed by
Presidents Ronald Reagan (R) and Donald Trump (R), respectively.
Judge Ilana Rovner dissented: "At a time when judicial intervention is most needed to protect the fundamental right of Wisconsin citizens to choose their elected representatives, the court declares itself powerless to do anything." Rovner is a George H.W. Bush (R) appointee.
Lawsuits
To date, we have tracked 262 lawsuits and/or court orders involving election policy issues and the COVID-19 outbreak. Click here to view the complete list of lawsuits and court orders.
Here's the latest on noteworthy litigation. Examples of noteworthy litigation include, but are not limited to, lawsuits filed by presidential campaigns and major political parties, and cases decided by state supreme courts.
- Alaska: On Oct. 6, state officials appealed a lower court ruling suspending Alaska's absentee/mail-in ballot witness requirement to the state supreme court. The state has asked the supreme court for a decision by Oct. 12.
On Oct. 5, Superior Court Judge Dani Crosby ruled "application of the Witness Requirement during the pandemic impermissibly burdens the right to vote." Crosby did not bar enforcement of the requirement, anticipating that the state might appeal the decision: "If Defendants seek review from the Alaska Supreme Court, they may wish to request a stay of this order – by delaying entry of the preliminary injunction order, the court may avoid confusion that would result from issuing an order eliminating the Witness Requirement, then staying it while the matter is before the Alaska Supreme Court."
Alaska law requires a notary or an adult witness to sign ballot return documents. The plaintiffs–including the Arctic Village Council and the League of Women Voters of Alaska–argue that they and other voters, "should not be forced to choose between risking exposure to COVID-19 through complying with the Witness Requirement or forgoing their right to vote."
The defendants said the plaintiffs "waited too long to seek relief from the court and that the doctrine of laches requires the court to dismiss their complaint." Under the laches doctrine, a party is not entitled to pursue a claim if the plaintiff has "unreasonably delayed in bringing the action."
- Florida: On Oct. 6, a Broward County resident and several nonprofit groups–including Dream Defenders, New Florida Majority, Organize Florida, and the Florida Immigrant Coalition–sued Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Secretary of State Laurel Lee (R) in U.S. district court seeking to extend the state's voter registration deadline.
On Oct. 5, the original voter registration deadline, technical issues with the online voter registration system prevented some registrants from completing the registration process. This prompted Lee to extend the registration deadline through 7 p.m. on Oct 6.
Plaintiffs allege, "The result of the state’s failure to keep the OVR system operational was that many Floridians were unable to register to vote at all. Without action by this Court, these aspirational voters will be unable to cast a ballot in the Presidential Election and will be deprived of their fundamental rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments."
State officials said another extension would confuse voters and undermine confidence in the election: "The consistent theme that threads together all of the State’s arguments in this filing is this: Florida, like the rest of the Nation, must play its oversized role in selecting the next President of the United States. Judicially overhauling a critical Florida election deadline might sabotage, perhaps irreparably, Florida’s efforts to maintain normalcy during this profoundly abnormal election cycle."
The lawsuit is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, with Judge Mark E. Walker, a Barack Obama (D) appointee, presiding.
- Nevada: On Oct. 7, the Nevada Supreme Court declined to bar election officials from proceeding with plans to conduct the state's Nov. 3 election predominantly by mail.
The plaintiffs–the Election Integrity Project of Nevada and Sharron Angle, a former Republican member of the state assembly–alleged Assembly Bill 4, which allows mail-in ballots to be automatically sent to all voters during a state of emergency, would give rise to "fraudulent abuses of election procedures, resulting in dishonest and incorrect voting totals."
Judge Rob Bare of the Eighth Judicial District Court rejected this argument. The Nevada Supreme Court unanimously upheld Bare's decision: "The district court determined that petitioners did not present a ripe controversy because the harm they alleged was largely hypothetical, and regardless, AB 4 did not violate equal protection principles and the relative hardships and public interest weighed against a preliminary injunction. On
this record, we agree."
Today: Absentee/mail-in request deadlines
The Help Desk daily feature will answer one frequently asked question or provide a summary of key election dates and policies each day. Today we take a look at absentee/mail-in request deadlines.
States may have up to three separate deadlines for requesting absentee/mail-in ballots. Voters can request these ballots either in-person, online, or by mail. For mail requests, the deadline can be either a postmark deadline (when the request was delivered to a mail service) or a received deadline (when the request arrived at the election office). The chart below details these deadlines in each state.
- Five states (Colo., Hawaii, Ore., Utah, and Wash.) do not appear on the table below because they conduct all elections by mail.
- Four states (Calif., Nev., N.J., and Vt.) do not appear on the table below because they are using all-mail voting temporarily for the Nov. 2020 election.
- Mississippi does not appear on the table below because it has no fixed absentee/mail-in request deadline.
The earliest in-person request deadline is Oct. 12 in Texas and the latest is Nov. 2 in 11 states. The earliest online request deadline is Oct. 9 in Kentucky and the latest deadline is Nov. 2 in Minnesota and North Dakota. The earliest mail request deadline is Oct. 13 in Rhode Island and the latest is Nov. 2 in six states.
For more information on absentee/mail-in voting in 2020, click here.
What we’re reading today
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