First State’s top cop vows to appeal ‘extremist’ voting rights court decision

The ruling is the latest in a spate of decisions limiting access to the voting booth. In 2022, a court also struck down same-day registration and no-excuse absentee voting.

Jennings said the elimination of permanent absentee voting, which allows people who are disabled or in the military deployed overseas to not have to apply each time for a mail in ballot, hits the First State’s most vulnerable the most.

“Our military families, Delawareans who volunteer and are sent all over the globe in service of our nation, are now being deleted from the permanent absentee list,” she said “This extreme Republican minority lawsuit has now successfully disenfranchised our state’s most vulnerable and most noble voters, veterans, disabled caregivers and working people, 21,000 of them in the case of permanent absentee voters.”

A spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Elections said deployed military personnel and overseas voters who were on the permanent absentee voter list will now have to apply for an absentee ballot every election cycle.

The permanent absentee law was passed by lawmakers in 2010 and Jennings and Democratic lawmakers point out that Hocker voted for the legislation at the time. He was also a co-sponsor of a bill signed into law in 2009 that would permit military and overseas voters to automatically receive absentee ballot applications and ballots electronically.

Hocker said that he does not support the concept now.

“I don’t like no-excuse absentee voting or mailing absentee voting, I’m totally against it,” he said. “But, let’s do it the right way and make it a constitutional amendment, so we’re not breaking our own constitution.”

A constitutional amendment to enshrine permanent absentee voting was approved once by both the House and Senate in 2019. But some Democrats blame Republican House members, such as Rep. Mike Smith for switching to “no” votes on the second leg of the attempt to pass the amendment through both chambers.

Smith said in a statement that the amendment had a “poison pill” that allowed future changes on voting to be made with a simple majority vote.

“[Democrats] do not want all voices included in the governing process,” his statement said. “They preach equity, they preach inclusion, but they don’t mean it when it comes to governing.”