AG Hill Applauds Federal Courts Upholding Enforcement Of Indiana’s Election Laws

The decisions had to do with mail-in ballots.

(Indianapolis, Ind.) - Attorney General Curtis Hill today applauded two decisions by federal courts favoring enforcement of Indiana’s election laws as written by the General Assembly.

First, a federal appellate court upheld the constitutionality of Indiana’s mail-in voting law, which permits only some categories of voters, including the elderly, to cast mail-in ballots. The court, citing longstanding Supreme Court precedent, held that the right to vote does not include a right to cast a mail-in ballot.

Second, a federal district court stayed its decision in another case enjoining an Indiana law prohibiting election officials from counting mail-in ballots received after noon on Election Day. In that case, the district court had previously ruled that officials must count any mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day received within 10 days of Election Day. On Tuesday, that court stayed its injunction for a week while the state appeals.

“The message is starting to get through that courts should not be tinkering with election laws within a month of Election Day, even during the pandemic,” Attorney General Hill said. “The U.S. Supreme Court has said that courts should not issue election-related injunctions at the eleventh hour, and perhaps that standard is starting to resonate.”

Attached are the decision of the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case involving Indiana’s mail-in voting law and also the decision of the U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana granting a one-week stay in the case involving Indiana’s Election Day deadline for absentee ballots.

• Order granting partial stay - CC3.pdf
• 7th Circuit Tully decision.pdf