Wisconsin mayors push for primary election postponement amid coronavirus outbreak

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Wisconsin mayors push for primary election postponement amid coronavirus outbreak

Nine mayors from some of Wisconsin’s most influential cities on Sunday called on the state to postpone the primary election scheduled for Tuesday due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The state is under a stay-at-home order and the mayors claim that the decision puts “hundreds of thousands of citizens at risk,” Reuters reported.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has called for a special session of his state’s legislature to overhaul Tuesday’s scheduled primary -- by allowing for an all-mail election, sending absentee ballots to every registered voter and pushing the deadline back until May 26 for ballots to be sent back.

The Democratic governor initially joined Republican leaders in seeking to hold the primary as planned, but he now favors an all-mail election with absentee voting well into May. Republicans maintain that Tuesday’s in-person voting should go on as planned.

The election features the Democratic presidential primary between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, but a bigger concern for Republicans is a high-stakes state Supreme Court race featuring a conservative incumbent against a liberal challenger. The Washington Post reported that Ann S. Jacobs and Mark L. Thomsen—two commissioners—wrote a letter to Robin Vos, the Republican state House speaker.“Your failure to address these profound issues and the safety of all of Wisconsin’s residents during yesterday’s special session is unconscionable and is an abdication of your constitutional responsibilities as our leaders,” the letter read, according to the paper.