Republican Nat'l Comm. v. Democratic Nat'l Comm., 140 S. Ct. 1205

Wisconsin's April 7, 2020 spring election proceeded amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a sharp surge in absentee-ballot requests (≈1.2 million requests reported).
Plaintiffs (voters, organizations, state and national Democratic parties) sued in the Western District of Wisconsin seeking relief to preserve absentee voting accessibility.
The District Court issued a preliminary injunction (Apr 2) extending the deadline to request absentee ballots to Apr 3 and extending the deadline for municipal clerks to receive absentee ballots from Apr 7 (8:00 p.m.) to Apr 13 (4:00 p.m.), accepting ballots regardless of postmark; it also enjoined release of results before Apr 13.
Intervenor-defendants sought emergency stays; the Seventh Circuit declined to modify the absentee-return deadline. The State then sought relief from the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court granted a stay (per curiam) to the extent the District Court required counting absentee ballots postmarked after Apr 7, holding that ballots must be postmarked by Apr 7 (or hand-delivered by Apr 7) and received by Apr 13 to be counted.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether absentee ballots postmarked after Election Day (Apr 7) may be counted if received by Apr 13	Counting ballots postmarked after Apr 7 is necessary to avoid disenfranchising voters who timely requested ballots but received them late due to COVID-related delays	Altering postmark rule close to the election violates state law and Purcell principles; courts should not change election rules on the eve of elections	Stay granted: ballots must be postmarked by Apr 7 (or hand-delivered by Apr 7) and received by Apr 13 to be counted
Whether the District Court exceeded proper relief by extending the effective voting period after Election Day	Extension was needed to protect voting rights amid public-health crisis; plaintiffs urged relief at hearing	District Court unilaterally altered the nature of the election and granted relief plaintiffs did not seek in writing; such late changes are improper	Majority faulted the District Court for changing rules so close to the election and limited relief accordingly
Whether enjoining publication of results until Apr 13 was appropriate	Preventing early results disclosure was necessary to avoid influencing voters and protect ballot integrity	Enjoining nonparties and suppressing public information is extraordinary, questionable, and may be impracticable	The majority criticized the results-gag as unusual; the stay addressed the narrow absentee-postmark issue rather than endorsing the gag

Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1 (2006) (lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter election rules close to an election)
Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428 (1992) (framework for assessing burdens on the right to vote)
Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983) (balancing test for evaluating election-law burdens)