WASHINGTON, April 7 (Xinhua) -- After several rounds of back-and-forth court fight between the Democratic governor and the Republican-controlled legislature, presidential primaries went as scheduled Tuesday in Wisconsin, the first U.S. state where voters cast their ballots in person amid the coronavirus outbreak.
In light of the pandemic, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers issued an executive order Monday to postpone the election until June 9 and extend the deadline for absentee ballots until "the fifth day immediately preceding the new in-person election date."
The Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked the governor's executive order on the same day, keeping the primaries as planned and rendering a victory to the state's Republicans who control both the state Senate and Assembly.
"Thousands will wake up and have to choose between exercising their right to vote and staying healthy and safe," Evers said after the state Supreme Court ruling on Monday.
Shortly after the ruling, U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 along ideological lines to reverse a lower court ruling last Friday that allowed Wisconsinites to turn in their absentee ballots until April 13.
The conservative justices in the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in an opinion that they viewed the case debated in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit as a "narrow, technical question."
However, liberal-minded Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent signed by three other Democratic appointees that the Supreme Court's order would cause "massive disenfranchisement."
Wisconsin is one of the most contentiously-fought battlegrounds in the U.S. election. Polls will closes at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time Tuesday, and the state's elections commission has ordered municipal clerks not to release any results until April 13.
Due to COVID-19's unabated spread across the nation, 15 states and one territory -- Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico -- have either delayed their presidential primaries or canceled in-person voting, instead switching to mail-in votes with extended deadlines.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is now leading Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, his sole rival in the party's nominating contest. Incumbent President Donald Trump has already secured the Republican nomination.
