Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill on Wednesday applauded two decisions by federal courts favoring enforcement of Indiana’s election laws as written by the General Assembly.
First, a federal appellate court upheld the constitutionality of Indiana’s mail-in voting law, which permits only some categories of voters, including the elderly, to cast mail-in ballots. The court, citing longstanding Supreme Court precedent, held that the right to vote does not include a right to cast a mail-in ballot.
Second, a federal district court stayed its decision in another case enjoining an Indiana law prohibiting election officials from counting mail-in ballots received after noon on Election Day. In that case, the district court had previously ruled that officials must count any mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day received within 10 days of Election Day. On Tuesday, that court stayed its injunction for a week while the state appeals.
Hill
“The message is starting to get through that courts should not be tinkering with election laws within a month of Election Day, even during the pandemic,” Hill said. “The U.S. Supreme Court has said that courts should not issue election-related injunctions at the eleventh hour, and perhaps that standard is starting to resonate.”
Click here to read the decision of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case involving Indiana’s mail-in voting law.
Click here to read the decision of the U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana granting a one-week stay in the case involving Indiana’s Election Day deadline for absentee ballots.