A lawsuit challenging the ruling by Wisconsin’s Supreme Court earlier this month that absentee voter drop boxes are illegal was filed by four people with disabilities, Axios reported on Tuesday.
The ruling stated that voters must mail or return completed absentee ballots in person to designated officials and also will not be permitted to return absentee ballots in drop boxes in the offices of elected officials.
The plaintiffs argue that many people with disabilities are not able to vote if they are not permitted to receive help to mail or deliver their ballots, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
The lawsuit contended that "plaintiffs are faced with an impossible, and unlawful, choice: abstain from voting altogether or risk that their ballots will be invalidated, or that their only available method to vote absentee (ballot-return assistance) could subject them to prosecution."
The lawsuit reflects wider fears by those with disabilities who say new ballot restrictions will increase obstacles to voting.
Eighteen states last year enacted 34 laws that place additional hurdles on the voting process, many of which particularly target mail voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Mia Ives-Rublee, director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy institute, told USA Today: "I am extremely worried about the elections in November. To reduce the amount of time of early voting, to reduce ballot drop boxes, all of that is going to specifically impact disabled people."
In the last elections, 52%, of voters with disabilities cast their ballot by mail before Election Day, compared to 40% of voters without disabilities, according to the Program for disability Research at Rutgers University.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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