Thread by @jallen1985

THREAD—Three GOP 5th Circuit judges revived a TX lawsuit for an order requiring voters to wear masks.

The 5th Circuit has jurisdiction over MS as well as TX, and its implicit holding that states can require voters to wear masks rebukes @MississippiSOS. 1/
foxnews.com/politics/coron…

The TX lawsuit sought many items of relief, all of which the district court and 5th Circuit rejected EXCEPT for the plaintiffs' claim under the Voting Rights Act for a mask mandate at polling places.

The full opinion is here: assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7231… 2/

The VRA claim is that failure to mandate masks unduly burdens Texans' of color right to vote because it unduly exposes voters to COVID-19, a disease that disproportionately affects people of color. 3/

At the oral argument, Judges Owen, Davis, and Southwick (1 Reagan and 2 W appointees) asked why masks were not required. TX suggested that there may be a right to vote without a mask, but the panel refused to accept that notion.

Audio available here: ca5.uscourts.gov/OralArgRecordi… 4/

Mississippi's SecState @MichaelWatsonMS repeatedly claims that voters cannot be required to wear masks in order to vote in-person inside the polling place—which is a core premise of Watson's new regulations for polling places. 5/

Not only did the 5th Circuit refuse to accept the suggestion that a state CAN'T require voters to wear masks to vote in-person in the polling place, but it required the trial court on remand to decide whether the VRA REQUIRES TX to do so in order to protect voters of color. 6/