Former Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse recently wrote a scathing critique in the New York Times of that body’s ruling against an extended deadline for absentee voting for Wisconsin residents in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
“What is ordinary about the way we’re living?” she asked Jim Braude rhetorically on Greater Boston Tuesday. “What’s ordinary about … the way the court is functioning? What’s ordinary about having to be in fear of your life if you go to the polling place to stand in a crowded line to cast a ballot?”
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Republicans’ favor last week, striking down a lower court ruling that had extended the deadline for absentee ballots by six days.
In her piece, Greenhouse honed in on the majority’s use of the word ‘ordinary,’ in its unsigned conclusion that “lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election.”
