Court rules no-excuse, mail-in voting law violates Delaware constitution

A court in Delaware has ruled that the recent no-excuse, mail-in voting law passed by the state legislature violates the state constitution.

The court decided the case late Wednesday in favor of Michael Mennella, an inspector of elections for the Delaware Department of Elections.

The mail-in voting law was passed by the state legislature in July, and the lawsuit was filed hours after it went into effect by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which represented Mennella.

Jane Brady of Brady Legal Group LLC served as co-counsel.

The Delaware constitution "provides for absentee voting in certain enumerated circumstances," which the state Supreme Court has said are exhaustive, according to the court ruling. Thus, the law's "attempt to expand absentee voting to Delawareans who do not align with" those circumstances "must be rejected," the court ruled.

PILF President J. Christian Adams said: "This ruling upheld the rule of law in Delaware when not long-ago election officials across the country were ignoring the law. This law violated the election protections in Delaware's Constitution. Election officials must follow the law."

The lawsuit was combined with another case seeking to challenge the constitutionality of Delaware's same-day registration law, PILF attorney Noel Johnson told Just the News.

The court declined to enjoin the lawsuit regarding same-day registration.

PILF also filed another lawsuit earlier this year on the behalf of Mennella, which alleges that Delaware's statutes regarding early in-person voting and permanent absentee voting violate the state constitution.