Justia Election Law Opinion Summaries

Joanne Pearson, a Republican candidate for Madison County Election Commissioner in District Three, won the election against Walter Young, Jr., a Democratic candidate, by a vote of 5,772 to 3,917. Pearson had filed her application to qualify as a candidate in January 2024, and the Madison County Board of Supervisors approved her candidacy in February 2024. Five citizens, collectively referred to as Brown, appealed the Board’s decision, arguing that Pearson’s application was incomplete and that there was a conflict of interest with the Board’s attorney, Spence Flatgard.The Madison County Circuit Court reviewed the case and denied Brown’s motion to disqualify Flatgard, affirming the Board’s decision to approve Pearson’s candidacy. The court found that Pearson’s application, despite some incomplete areas, met the statutory requirements for the position. Brown then appealed both decisions to the Supreme Court of Mississippi.The Supreme Court of Mississippi reviewed the case and affirmed the lower court’s decisions. The court held that the Board did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in approving Pearson’s candidacy. It found that Pearson’s application substantially complied with the statutory requirements, and any minor irregularities did not mislead the electors. The court also upheld the circuit court’s decision to deny the motion to disqualify Flatgard, finding no conflict of interest as the Board and the election commission were not adverse parties in this matter. The court concluded that the Board’s decision was supported by substantial evidence and was within its discretionary power. View "Brown v. Madison County Board of Supervisors" on Justia Law

In the 2023 Republican primary election for the District 6 seat on the Columbus City Council, no candidate ran, prompting the Bartholomew County Republican Party to hold a caucus to select a nominee. Joseph Foyst was chosen, but Ross Thomas, the chairman of the Bartholomew County Democratic Party, sued for a declaratory judgment claiming the Republican Party missed the statutory deadline for choosing its nominee. The suit was unresolved before the election, which Foyst won. After the election, the Bartholomew Circuit Court denied Thomas’s claim, but the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the Republican Party missed the deadline and declared Foyst’s candidacy void, instructing that Bryan Muñoz, the second-place finisher, be declared the winner.The Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer and remanded to the circuit court to dismiss the case as moot. The court noted that the Indiana General Assembly created two distinct avenues for election disputes: pre-election candidacy challenges and post-election contests. Thomas did not file an election contest, which is the only statutory remedy for declaring the second-place finisher the winner when the first-place finisher’s nomination is invalid. Since Thomas only brought a pre-election challenge, his request to prohibit Foyst from appearing on the ballot became moot after the election occurred and Foyst appeared on the ballot.The Indiana Supreme Court held that Thomas must follow the statutory requirements for an election contest to set aside election results. The court emphasized the importance of adhering to the General Assembly’s rules for challenging elections and concluded that Thomas’s failure to file an election contest rendered his claim moot. The court vacated the Court of Appeals decision and remanded the case to the circuit court with instructions to dismiss it as moot. View "Thomas v. Foyst" on Justia Law

In December 2023, Mary McDonald filed a petition to run as a Republican candidate for a seat on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. A protest was filed against her candidacy by Mohamed Al-Hamdani and Brenda Blausser, alleging she was not qualified due to her position in the Democratic Party and other statutory non-compliances. During the protest hearing, it was revealed that a confidential legal memorandum from the county prosecutor’s office had been leaked to the protesters. An investigation found that the board’s deputy director, Russell M. Joseph, had forwarded the memo from his board email to his personal email and then to Al-Hamdani.The Montgomery County Board of Elections initially denied a public-records request for emails related to the memo, citing attorney-client privilege and lack of access to the records. After further clarification, the board maintained its position, leading Joseph J. Platt to file an original action seeking a writ of mandamus to compel the board to produce the emails and to organize and maintain public records properly.The Supreme Court of Ohio reviewed the case and determined that the email from the prosecutor’s office to the board and the email Joseph sent from his board email to his personal email were public records and not protected by attorney-client privilege. However, the email Joseph sent from his personal email to Al-Hamdani was not considered a public record. The court granted the writ in part, ordering the board to produce the two emails, awarded Platt $1,000 in statutory damages, court costs, and attorney fees subject to an itemized application. The court denied the writ regarding the organization and maintenance of records. View "State ex rel. Platt v Montgomery Cty. Bd. of Elections" on Justia Law

The case involves a challenge to seven rules promulgated by the State Elections Board (SEB) of Georgia. The plaintiffs, including individuals and organizations, argue that these rules were not authorized by the General Assembly and violated the nondelegation doctrine of the Georgia Constitution. The rules in question include requirements for video surveillance of absentee ballot drop boxes, hand counting of ballots, and the provision of photo identification when delivering absentee ballots, among others.The trial court found that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge the rules and ruled in their favor, declaring the rules unconstitutional and contrary to the Election Code. The court also found that the rules violated the nondelegation doctrine and the Federal Elections Clause. The defendants appealed the decision.The Supreme Court of Georgia reviewed the case and determined that the organizational plaintiffs did not have standing, as they did not assert violations of their own rights. The individual plaintiffs had standing to challenge five of the seven rules based on their right to vote but did not have standing to challenge the Poll Watcher Rule and the Daily Reporting Rule. The court vacated and remanded the issue of whether one plaintiff had standing as a member of the Chatham County Board of Elections.On the merits, the court overruled the precedent set by Dept. of Transp. v. City of Atlanta, which had allowed broad delegations of legislative power to executive agencies. Applying a stricter nondelegation analysis, the court found that four of the five rules challenged by the individual plaintiffs were not authorized by statute and thus invalid. The Drop Box Surveillance Rule, however, was found to be consistent with the statutory requirements and was upheld. The case was remanded for further proceedings regarding the standing of the election board member and the validity of the remaining two rules. View "REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE v. ETERNAL VIGILANCE ACTION, INC." on Justia Law

The case involves the San Diego Public Library Foundation and the San Diego Parks Foundation (appellants) who began circulating a petition in July 2022 for the "Libraries and Parks Improvement Act" initiative to secure funding for libraries and parks in San Diego. They submitted over 111,000 signatures to the San Diego City Clerk for verification. The City Clerk forwarded the petition to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters for signature verification. The Registrar used a random sample to verify the signatures and determined that the initiative did not have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.The Superior Court of San Diego County found that the City Clerk used the correct election date (November 2020) to determine the number of required signatures. The court also found that the appellants needed an additional 185 valid signatures to trigger a full count. The court did not address all of the appellants' contentions because it concluded that the appellants could not achieve the required number of valid signatures.The California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division One, reviewed the case. The court held that the City Clerk correctly used the general election preceding the filing of the notice of intent to circulate the initiative petition to determine the required number of signatures. However, the court found that the Registrar acted arbitrarily in rejecting signatures due to misspellings, illegibility, or nonstandard abbreviations when the voter registration record could be located and the identity of the signer could be verified. The court reversed the judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. View "San Diego Public Library Foundation v. Fuentes" on Justia Law

Thomas G. Dean, representing himself, appealed the dismissal of his challenge to the qualifications of candidates in the 2022 partisan election for the office of Georgia Labor Commissioner. Dean, who lost the Democratic primary election, filed a petition for declaratory judgment against the State of Georgia, seeking to be declared the sole qualified candidate. He did not challenge the qualifications of the other candidates through the pre-election administrative process and failed to file an affidavit verifying his petition as required for post-election contests.The trial court dismissed Dean's petition for two reasons: his failure to challenge the other candidates' qualifications before the primary within the required timeframe and his failure to verify his petition by affidavit within five days of certification of the primary election results. Dean appealed to the Court of Appeals, which transferred the case to the Supreme Court of Georgia due to its exclusive appellate jurisdiction over election contests.The Supreme Court of Georgia dismissed Dean's appeal, emphasizing the duty of litigants in election contests to expedite resolution before an election is held. The court noted that Dean did not make every effort to have his claims decided before the election, including failing to file a pre-election challenge and seeking to expedite the proceeding and stay the primary election. The court held that the principles requiring dismissal of election contests on prudential grounds apply equally to declaratory judgment suits. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed without addressing the merits of Dean's claims. View "DEAN v. STATE OF GEORGIA" on Justia Law

In 2021, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Spirit Lake Tribe, and three individual Native American voters filed a lawsuit against North Dakota’s Secretary of State. They claimed that the state's 2021 redistricting plan diluted Native American voting strength, violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Section 2 of the VRA prohibits vote dilution, which can occur through packing a minority group into one district or dividing them among several districts to weaken their voting power.The United States District Court for the District of North Dakota denied the Secretary's motion to dismiss, which argued that private plaintiffs lacked a cause of action under Section 2 and could not use § 1983 to enforce it. The district court allowed the case to proceed, and after a bench trial, it ruled that the 2021 redistricting map violated Section 2. The court permanently enjoined the Secretary from using the map and ordered the North Dakota Legislative Assembly to adopt a remedial map. When the Assembly failed to do so, the court imposed the plaintiffs' proposed map.The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reviewed the case. The main issue was whether private plaintiffs could enforce Section 2 of the VRA through § 1983. The court held that Section 2 does not unambiguously confer an individual right enforceable under § 1983. The court emphasized that Section 2 focuses on the entities regulated (states and political subdivisions) rather than unambiguously creating individual rights. Consequently, the court vacated the district court's judgment and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss it for lack of a cause of action. View "Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v. Howe" on Justia Law

In the fall of 2021, the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa (LULAC) filed a petition against the Iowa Secretary of State, the Iowa Voter Registration Commission, and several county auditors. LULAC challenged a 2008 permanent injunction from a different case, which prohibited the dissemination of voter registration forms in languages other than English under the Iowa English Language Reaffirmation Act. LULAC argued that the injunction was wrongly decided and sought its dissolution, along with a declaration that the Act allowed for non-English voting materials.The Iowa District Court for Polk County granted LULAC’s requests, dissolving the King injunction and issuing a declaratory judgment that the Act did not apply to voting materials. The court held that voting materials were necessary to secure the right to vote and thus fell within the rights exception of the Act.The Iowa Supreme Court reviewed the case and focused on the issue of standing. The court concluded that LULAC lacked standing to challenge the King injunction and the Secretary of State’s interpretation of the law. The court reasoned that LULAC’s general interest in the proper interpretation and enforcement of the law, as well as its resource diversion in response to the injunction, did not constitute a legally cognizable injury. The court emphasized that standing requires a specific personal or legal injury, which LULAC failed to demonstrate. Consequently, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed the district court’s decision and remanded the case for dismissal. View "League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa v. Iowa Secretary of State" on Justia Law

The case involves the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) filing a two-count complaint against Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan Secretary of State, alleging non-compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). PILF claimed that Michigan failed to conduct proper maintenance of voter registration lists by not removing deceased registrants and did not allow inspection of public records related to voter rolls. PILF's requests for records and subsequent correspondence with the Secretary of State's office did not yield the desired information, leading to the lawsuit.The United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan granted summary judgment in favor of Secretary Benson. The court found that Michigan's efforts to maintain voter registration lists, including using state and federal death records and collaborating with the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), constituted a reasonable effort under the NVRA. The court also found that PILF's claim regarding the failure to allow inspection of records was moot.The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reviewed the case. The court affirmed the district court's summary judgment, agreeing that Michigan's program for removing deceased registrants was reasonable under the NVRA. The court noted that the NVRA requires a reasonable effort, not a perfect one, and that Michigan's multi-layered approach met this standard. The court also found that PILF lacked standing to assert its claim regarding the inspection of records, as it failed to demonstrate concrete downstream consequences from the alleged NVRA violation.In conclusion, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment, holding that Michigan's efforts to maintain accurate voter registration lists were reasonable and that PILF did not have standing to pursue its claim regarding the inspection of records. View "Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Benson" on Justia Law

Registered Missouri voters Raymond McCarty, Daniel Shaul, Russell Lahl, and Michael Hastings, along with several nonprofit organizations, contested the results of the November 2024 election approving Proposition A. They argued that the summary statement and fiscal note summary for Proposition A were misleading, casting doubt on the election's fairness and validity. Proposition A proposed increasing the minimum wage, adjusting it based on the Consumer Price Index, requiring paid sick leave, and exempting certain entities.The Missouri Supreme Court reviewed the case. The lower courts had not previously reviewed this specific election contest. The plaintiffs brought the case directly to the Missouri Supreme Court, which has original jurisdiction over election contests under chapter 115 of the Missouri statutes.The Missouri Supreme Court held that the summary statement and fiscal note summary for Proposition A were not misleading or materially inaccurate. The court found that the summary statement fairly and impartially summarized the central features of Proposition A, and the fiscal note summary adhered to statutory requirements by focusing on governmental costs. The court concluded that there was no election irregularity of sufficient magnitude to cast doubt on the election's validity. Additionally, the court dismissed the plaintiffs' claims that Proposition A violated the "single subject" and "clear title" requirements of the Missouri Constitution, citing a lack of original jurisdiction over these claims. The court upheld the election results, affirming the validity of Proposition A. View "McCarty v. Secretary of State" on Justia Law