Dem-stanning judge reinstates straight ticket voting

A district court has stayed the elimination of straight-ticket voting in Texas. I smell something rotten in Gilberto Hinojosa's Democratic Denmark. And, per and/or contra Kuff, who says the Fifth Circuit will almost certainly overrule this stay, but hopes in a Sam Gamgee way that maybe we're too close for election day for this to happen? Bullshit. Fifth Circuit will boot this thing on its ass, and rightly so. 

Update, Sept. 28: So it has done, on the hold. Expect a permanent ruling by the end of this week.

Update, Oct. 1: And so it is.

The idea that individual ballot selection will cause unhealthy undue delays in the light of coronavirus? Fifth Circuit, which has already tossed a 26th-Amendment based suit against restricting voting by mail to senior citizens and the sick, can use that as one angle to overrule Marina Garcia Marmolejo. The 5th can also refer to Strangebbott expanding early voting by a week, and the Texas Supreme Court's "don't ask, don't tell" ruling on asking for a mail ballot. Given that the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans was added as plaintiff after the previous suit failed (and, with a name like that, sounds like a made-up group), the 5th can also, per that failed lawsuit, point toward Texas law and arguably claim it lacks standing as an already protected class. And, that "Texas Alliance" is actually part of an AFL-CIO national alliance. Shock me.

Marmolejo raised rhetorically, then trashed, most of the above arguments in her order.

Also via a Kuff post? Given that Marmolejo tossed the original suit at the end of June, when COVID was already known to be serious, upholding this smells like bullshit. The cases she cites as precedent also seem like bullshit. United States vs Marengo County Commission was about redistricting. So was Kirksey vs Board of Supervisors of Hinds County. I expect the 5th Circuit to trash these graspings at straws.

AND? As part of the update, per the Chronic's link above? Marmolejo offered a NON-CORONAVIRUS reason for trying to restore straight ticket voting.

Just six states continue to use one-punch voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Regardless, Marmolejo said Texas voters have come to rely on it as part of their voting experience and that eliminating the practice would cause more confusion, not less.

BOOM. 

And this, contra the likes of Kuff who claim it's only Rethugs who play politics with electoral issues, is exactly the type of hypocrisy I love to expose.

Yes, the GOP used the straight ticket to get to power, then worried and decided to end it. And? Dems in the old days used it to hold on to power. Between that and Dems' repeated efforts to block Greens (well before this year), Texas Dems crying foul? Cry me a river. And, since the Chronic didn't supply more info about the states still using straight ticket, here's the NCSL's own story on that. Contra TDP's Abhi Rahman, large states with large black and Hispanic populations, like New York, New Jersey, California, Florida and Illinois, not only don't use it now but have apparently not used it for years. As in, at least 20 years.

Also, beyond all of the above legal reasons I listed that Marmolejo's ruling was wrong, per the "Purcell principle," this is the easiest wedge reason for the Fifth Circuit, going beyond the hold, to bounce her ruling entirely.

Per the second update above, the Fifth Circuit started with the Purcell principle, then noted Marmolejo was wrong in claiming 18 days before the start of early voting was a lot more than five days. The court goes beyond that to note that the original law was passed in 2017 and that claims of injury could have been filed earlier than they were  — or, I suppose, refiled after the original was dismissed for standing issues. Speaking of that, the three-judge panel of the Circuit called out Marmolejo for her take on standing. 

That said, I'm surprised the Fifth didn't make a wink and a nod at Equal Protection issues by claiming that not calling for straight-ticket early voting violated that.

The fact is that, due to the possibility of misprogramming voting machines at this late time, if anybody was going to create confusion, it was Marmolejo in her attempt to reimpose straight ticket voting at this late hour.