Democratic National Committee v. Wisconsin State Legislature
The Supreme Court refused to reinstate a federal judge's order extending Wisconsin's absentee ballot receipt deadline by six days for the November 2020 presidential election, leaving the state's election-day deadline in place despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ruling signaled that federal courts should not rewrite state election rules close to an election — even during a public health crisis — and that decisions about adjusting those rules belong primarily to state legislatures.
How it got here: A Wisconsin federal district court extended the absentee ballot receipt deadline; the Seventh Circuit stayed that order; the Democratic National Committee applied to the Supreme Court to vacate the stay.
The Case in Depth
What happened
As the November 2020 presidential election approached during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wisconsin required absentee ballots to be physically received by election day. A federal district court found that a surge in mail-ballot requests, combined with postal delays and health risks from in-person voting, would prevent tens of thousands of voters from successfully casting ballots under that deadline, and extended the receipt window by six days for ballots postmarked by election day. The Democratic National Committee and allied groups sued to preserve that extension.
The question before the Court
Did COVID-19 conditions require the Supreme Court to unblock a federal judge's order giving Wisconsin voters six extra days to return mail ballots for the November 2020 election?
The Court's answer
No — the Court denied the application and kept the Seventh Circuit's stay in place, meaning Wisconsin's election-day deadline for receiving absentee ballots stood for the November 2020 election.
The justices who wrote separately gave three main reasons. First, federal courts ordinarily should not alter state election rules close to an election — a principle the district court violated by acting six weeks before election day after absentee voting had already begun. Second, the Constitution entrusts state legislatures, not federal judges, with primary responsibility for setting election rules, including decisions about whether to adjust them during a pandemic. Third, Wisconsin's election-day receipt deadline — the same one used by roughly 30 other states — is a reasonable requirement that does not unconstitutionally burden the right to vote, particularly given Wisconsin's extensive accommodations for absentee voters.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Wisconsin voters who mailed absentee ballots postmarked by election day but received afterward risked having their votes discarded. The decision reinforced a broad principle that federal judges should stay out of state election administration in the weeks before a vote, shaping how courts across the country handled pandemic-era election challenges.
What changes now
Wisconsin's election-day absentee ballot receipt deadline remained in force for the November 3, 2020 election. Ballots postmarked by election day but arriving afterward were not counted. The underlying constitutional challenge to Wisconsin's election rules continued in the lower federal courts. This is an emergency order on a stay application, not a final ruling on the merits — it does not permanently resolve whether Wisconsin's deadline is constitutional.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Wisconsin's absentee ballot deadline is unconstitutional — that question remained in the lower courts. The order also does not settle the constitutionality of similar election-day receipt deadlines in the roughly 30 other states that have them, despite the dissent's argument that the majority's reasoning implicitly calls them all into question.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts agreed that the Seventh Circuit was right to stay the district court's injunction, because federal court intervention in a pending election was improper. He wrote separately to draw a line between this case and the pending Pennsylvania applications: those involved state courts interpreting their own state constitutions to modify election rules, while this case involves federal court intrusion on state lawmaking — different legal frameworks with different results.
Concurrence — Justice Gorsuch
“Elections must end sometime, a single deadline supplies clear notice, and requiring ballots be in by election day puts all voters on the same footing.”Justice Gorsuch explaining why Wisconsin's election-day receipt deadline for absentee ballots is rational and longstanding.
Justice Gorsuch argued forcefully that the Constitution places election rulemaking with state legislatures, not federal judges. He warned that allowing courts to improvise COVID-based extensions would produce inconsistent, ad hoc deadlines across jurisdictions and undermine democratic accountability. He emphasized that the framers deliberately made legislative change slow and consensus-driven — a feature, not a flaw — and that judges who fill perceived legislative voids damage faith in the constitutional order.
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh laid out three independent reasons the district court's injunction was unwarranted: it violated the Purcell principle against altering election rules close to an election; it usurped the state legislature's primary authority over pandemic-related election adjustments; and Wisconsin's election-day receipt deadline is constitutionally reasonable under the Anderson-Burdick test. He rebutted the dissent point by point, arguing Wisconsin's extensive absentee accommodations make the deadline fair and that the dissent's 'disenfranchisement' framing misunderstands how reasonable election deadlines work.
Dissent — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan argued that Purcell is a caution about voter confusion, not a blanket ban on pre-election injunctions, and that the district court correctly weighed all equities — including the pandemic's extraordinary circumstances. She contended the concurrences improperly disregarded the district court's factual findings that tens of thousands of voters would lose their votes through no fault of their own. In her view, a ballot-receipt deadline that was once constitutional becomes unconstitutional when pandemic conditions make it impossible for many voters to meet it.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Purcell principle — drawn from the Court's 2006 decision in Purcell v. Gonzalez — tells federal courts to avoid rewriting state election rules close to a scheduled election, because last-minute changes cause voter confusion, strain election administrators, and erode public confidence in results. The majority concurrences held that the district court violated this principle by issuing its order six weeks before election day and after absentee voting had already started.
- The Constitution's Elections Clause (Article I, § 4) assigns primary authority over federal election rules to state legislatures, with Congress as a check. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes individual federal judges to substitute their own election deadlines for those that legislatures have enacted — a structural point that applies with extra force when the legislature has already considered and decided not to change the rules in response to the pandemic.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, this Court has consistently held that state legislative choices about election rules — including a deliberate decision to leave existing rules in place — are entitled to judicial deference. Federal courts lack the public health expertise and democratic accountability needed to second-guess those choices, and allowing judges to improvise different deadlines in different jurisdictions would produce a 'Babel of decrees.'
- Under the Anderson-Burdick balancing test (the standard for evaluating whether a state election regulation unconstitutionally burdens the right to vote), Wisconsin's election-day receipt deadline is reasonable. Deadlines are constitutionally inherent to running elections; voters capable of meeting a reasonable deadline but who do not are not 'disenfranchised' in any legally meaningful sense. Wisconsin's deadline matches approximately 30 other states and is supported by legitimate state interests — including avoiding post-election ballot floods and enabling timely certification of results.
- Wisconsin had also taken extensive steps to help voters meet the deadline: mailing absentee ballot applications to 2.6 million non-requesting voters, offering secure drop boxes, allowing in-person absentee voting for two weeks before election day, and drawing on lessons from safe April and August primary elections. The majority concurrences concluded these accommodations made the deadline constitutionally sound even under pandemic conditions.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Purcell v. Gonzalez (549 U. S. 1)
The concurrences apply Purcell as controlling authority barring last-minute federal court changes to state election rules.
Distinguishes Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee (589 U. S. ___)
Kavanaugh clarifies that the April Wisconsin primary case never challenged the district court's deadline extension, so it does not support reinstating this one.