Evers - who had previously maintained that he alone did not have the authority to postpone an election - issued his order seeking to push back the elections on Monday, saying that he was acting to reduce exposure to the virus and ease concerns among his constituents about the spread of the pandemic. Evers issued a stay-at-home order last month as part of his administration's efforts to fight coronavirus.
At a press conference before the state Supreme Court's order, Evers indicated this would be his last move to try to postpone the election. "This will be the last avenue that we're taking," Evers said at the press conference. "There's not a Plan B. There's not a Plan C."
Shortly after the state Supreme Court's ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that absentee ballots must be postmarked by April 7 and received by 4 p.m. on April 13 to count. The high court's ruling overturns a district court's ruling from last week that ordering that ballots received by 4 p.m. on April 13 would count, regardless of when they were postmarked.
Wisconsin law typically requires that ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
While the Supreme Court's ruling was narrow, it still sharply divided the justices. The five justices in the majority - all five Republican appointees to the high court - wrote a detailed, though unsigned, rebuttal to a dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in which she warned that their ruling "will result in massive disenfranchisement."
"Either they will have to brave the polls, endangering their own and others' safety," Ginsburg wrote of the state's voters who have yet to receive their absentee ballots. "Or they will lose their right to vote, through no fault of their own."
Progressive groups were scrambling late Monday to determine what legal action, if any, they could take in an attempt to win an injunction.
A separate lawsuit was also filed last week in federal court in Wisconsin by Democratic state Sen. Lena Taylor, a mayoral candidate, and other parties seeking to postpone the election.
"The virus directs us as to what our decision-making is, not human beings, and clearly I am following the science, as I always have," the Democratic governor told POLITICO shortly before announcing his order. Evers said he heard from constituents relaying fear for their safety and their kids' safety, as he tracked updates about the number of deaths and rate of infections in Wisconsin. "Given that, I felt that the governor is the one who has to step up and stand for those people that aren't having their voices heard."
But Republican state legislative leaders challenged Evers immediately.
"The clerks of this state should stand ready to proceed with the election," state House Speaker Robin Vos and state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said in a joint statement upon appealing Evers' order. "The governor's executive order is clearly an unconstitutional overreach."
"The governor himself has repeatedly acknowledged he can't move the election," the statehouse leaders continued. "Gov. Evers can't unilaterally run the state."
Evers tweeted on April 1 that he couldn't postpone the election by himself. "If I could have changed the election on my own I would have but I can't without violating state law," he wrote.
Wisconsin is the last remaining state scheduled to hold in-person voting in April for presidential primaries. Every other state had either postponed its primary or shifted to an entirely vote-by-mail election.
Ever's executive order sought to suspend in-person voting until June 9, "unless the Legislature passes and the Governor approves a different date for inperson voting." Evers also called the state legislature back for a special session on Tuesday to "consider and act upon legislation to set a new in-person voting date for the 2020 Spring election."
"Certainly circumstances have changed," Evers said when asked about his authority to postpone the election at a Monday press conference, citing increased coronavirus cases and deaths in the state and a shrinking number of polling places open to due staffing issues amid the pandemic.
"Clearly I believe that this falls under my ability to make sure the security of the people of Wisconsin ... is taken into account. And that's why I'm doing this today," Evers continued.
The Wisconsin governor had faced increasing pressure from within his own party to postpone the election. Some Democrats were furious with Evers for his handling of the primary. Local officials pleaded for the election to be postponed because they feared polling places could serve as hot spots for the spread of the virus, and mayors of some of Wisconsin's largest cities called for in-person voting to be stopped over the weekend.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission had continued its preparations for the Tuesday elections even after Evers' order, noting the possibility a court could block his order. In a letter to the state's clerks, Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the commission, said they should still be preparing for the election.
"I know too much has already been asked of you, but we ask you to proceed with your Election Day preparations as we do not know the outcome of any possible litigation and we need to be prepared if the election is held tomorrow," Wolfe wrote.
Evers had called the state legislature back for a special session and asked them to act to postpone the election on Friday. The GOP-controlled legislature declined to do so, gaveling in and out of sessions in a matter of minutes on Saturday and earlier on Monday.
Republican legislative leaders in Wisconsin argued that the election had to go forward, though local officials across the state have pleaded for in-person voting to be shut down.
"There's no question that an election is just as important as getting take-out food," Vos and Fitzgerald said in a joint statement on Friday, after Evers called for the special session. "Our Republic must continue to function, and the many local government positions on the ballot must be filled so that municipalities can swiftly respond to the crisis at hand."
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