How can they enjoin something that has already happened? I don't understand. If the ballots already went out with the illegal instruction, what is this ruling going to accomplish?
This lawsuit was regarding two elections earlier this year, not the General Election that occurred earlier this week.
So, the question is whether those new instructions were in the General Election mail-in ballots or not? If so, the ballots with overvotes that were corrected in the manner described by the new instructions should have that race invalidated.
The concern here is that with a mail-in ballot, someone could intercept the ballot in the mail and change the voter's selection and the election counters would accept that as the "will of the voter". The law states that if a voter makes a mistake on the ballot and they want to correct/change their selection, they would need to request a new ballot and make the correct choice. That's pretty easy to do when you're voting in-person at a polling location. A bit more difficult if you're sending ballots out in the mail (and then you have to worry about people requesting several ballots and sending them back under different names).
In any case, this Fontes guy took it upon himself to change the procedure and he had no authority to do it and the court took him to the woodshed in their ruling.
Maybe I skimmed too fast, but I thought it said he sent out the illegal ballots even after the lower court ruled the instructions were illegal. Shouldn’t there be contempt proceedings or something?
How can they enjoin something that has already happened? I don't understand. If the ballots already went out with the illegal instruction, what is this ruling going to accomplish?
This lawsuit was regarding two elections earlier this year, not the General Election that occurred earlier this week.
So, the question is whether those new instructions were in the General Election mail-in ballots or not? If so, the ballots with overvotes that were corrected in the manner described by the new instructions should have that race invalidated.
The concern here is that with a mail-in ballot, someone could intercept the ballot in the mail and change the voter's selection and the election counters would accept that as the "will of the voter". The law states that if a voter makes a mistake on the ballot and they want to correct/change their selection, they would need to request a new ballot and make the correct choice. That's pretty easy to do when you're voting in-person at a polling location. A bit more difficult if you're sending ballots out in the mail (and then you have to worry about people requesting several ballots and sending them back under different names).
In any case, this Fontes guy took it upon himself to change the procedure and he had no authority to do it and the court took him to the woodshed in their ruling.
Maybe I skimmed too fast, but I thought it said he sent out the illegal ballots even after the lower court ruled the instructions were illegal. Shouldn’t there be contempt proceedings or something?
Damn right there should be.