Delaware absentee ballot law greenlit for midterms

The Delaware state Supreme Court fast-tracked a decision late Monday to uphold the state’s permanent absentee ballot law. This means eligible voters can use the balloting method in this fall’s midterm elections.

The state’s Department of Elections announced it would start sending out absentee ballots to eligible voters this week, immediately following the ruling.

Delaware’s decades-old law gives voters who cannot vote in person the option to automatically receive a ballot for each election.

Two state senate candidates — Gerald Hocker (R) and Steven Washington (I) — challenged that law. They argued Delaware’s law was unconstitutional because it gave the right to vote to voters who typically would not be eligible.

“What we start with is not in dispute,” the court wrote in its opinion. “Article V, Section 4A of the Delaware Constitution restricts absentee voting to specific categories of voters. Also, the permanent absentee voter statute does not deviate from these categories.”

Members of the Delaware Voting Rights Coalition celebrated the win in a statement Monday, noting the law ensures voting access for those with “disability or illness, caregiver responsibilities, active duty employment, or similar circumstances.”

The court also rejected the candidates’ argument that the permanent absentee ballot law fails to comply with the Department of Elections’ legal duty to keep voter rolls updated. When an eligible voter receives their ballot in the mail, the Department includes a letter to remind them of eligibility requirements. Voters whose letters are marked as undelivered have their names removed from the list.

In this sense, the word “permanent” only applies insofar as the voter is still eligible, as a lower court found earlier this month.

The court said the candidates aimed too high in seeking to entirely strike down the longstanding state statute. Notably, Hocker himself co-sponsored the legislation when it was passed 16 years ago.

 “At bottom, the plaintiffs have lost sight of the mountain they must climb to success on a facial constitutional challenge to legislation,” the court wrote.

The Delaware state Supreme Court fast-tracked a decision late Monday to uphold the state’s permanent absentee ballot law. This means eligible voters can use the balloting method in this fall’s midterm elections.