WISCONSIN SAW NO CORONAVIRUS INFECTION-RATE SPIKE AFTER APRIL 7 ELECTION, STUDY SAYS

The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office argued in a brief that Wolf has ample legal authority behind his sweeping order.

“Much of what [the plaintiffs] argue amounts to public policy disagreements as to how the governor used his authority,” the brief said. “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court applied well-established principles to conclude that the governor had that authority.”

Governors indeed have broad emergency police powers meant for situations like the coronavirus pandemic. But that authority varies by state, as was seen in the early stages of the pandemic when different states were forced to go through different processes to put off their elections.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Many states were easily able to reschedule voting for the Democratic presidential primary and other local races with just a declaration from the governor or the secretary of state — or with the collaboration of those two officials. But Ohio required a legislative say in the process, which DeWine ignored, tipping off a messy legal battle in which DeWine openly said he would defy a lower court’s order to close the state’s polls before the state’s supreme court decided to stay out of the fray and let DeWine move forward with his poll closure.

After a similar fight, Wisconsin’s election on April 7 controversially went forward over Evers’ objections.

Lawsuits over general coronavirus restrictions might take a similar course — with varying results in each state depending on the authority given to the governor under state law.


Fox News’  Ronn Blitzer, Andrew O’Reilly, Louis Casiano, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.