The Supreme Court declined Friday to force Texas officials to offer mail-in ballots to all voters in the state because of the threat of the coronavirus, not just those over 65.
The justices, without comment, turned down a request from the Texas Democratic Party to reinstate a district judge’s order that would affect the primary runoff elections in July and the general election in November.
There were no noted dissents to the court’s order, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the case raised “weighty but seemingly novel questions” regarding whether special conditions for those over a certain age violated the constitutional rights of younger voters.
She said an emergency request like the one before the Supreme Court was not the right time to consider them. But she added that she hoped the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit “will consider the merits of the legal issues in this case well in advance of the November election.”
