Justia Election Law Opinion Summaries

This case involved cross appeals regarding a petition to recall Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan based on events that occurred at protests following the killing of George Floyd. The recall petition alleged Mayor Durkan failed to adequately control the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) response to the protests, allowing the police to use unnecessary force and causing significant harm to nonviolent protesters, local residents, media representatives, and medical aid workers. Of the seven recall charges, six were dismissed by the trial court and one was allowed to move forward. Mayor Durkan appealed the charge that was allowed to move forward, and the recall petitioners appealed the dismissal of two other charges. On October 8, 2020, the Washington Supreme Court issued an order affirming the trial court’s dismissal of two recall charges and reversing the finding that one charge was sufficient for recall. View "In re Recall of Durkan" on Justia Law

Ten days after the 2020 presidential election, plaintiff, a Georgia voter, filed suit against state election officials to enjoin certification of the general election results, to secure a new recount under different rules, and to establish new rules for an upcoming runoff election. Plaintiff alleged that the extant absentee-ballot and recount procedures violated Georgia law and, as a result, his federal constitutional rights. The district court denied plaintiff's motion for emergency relief.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, concluding that plaintiff lacks standing to sue because he fails to allege a particularized injury. The court explained that plaintiff alleged only a generalized grievance because he bases his standing on his interests in ensuring that only lawful ballots are counted, and an injury to the right to require that the government be administered according to the law is a generalized grievance. In this case, plaintiff cannot explain how his interest in compliance with state election laws is different from that of any other person.Even if plaintiff had standing, because Georgia has already certified its election results and its slate of presidential electors, plaintiff's requests for emergency relief are moot to the extent they concern the 2020 election. The court stated that the Constitution makes clear that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and the court may not entertain post-election contests about garden-variety issues of vote counting and misconduct that may properly be filed in state courts. View "Wood v. Raffensperger" on Justia Law

Challengers filed suit alleging that a 2018 North Carolina law requiring voters to present photographic identification is unconstitutional because it was enacted with the same discriminatory intent as the 2013 Omnibus Law. The district court found that the Challengers were likely to succeed on the merits of their constitutional claims and issued a preliminary injunction against the law's enforcement.The Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that a legislature's past acts do not condemn the acts of a later legislature, which the court must presume acts in good faith. In this case, the district court considered the General Assembly's discriminatory intent in passing the 2013 Omnibus Law to be effectively dispositive of its intent in passing the 2018 Voter-ID Law. In doing so, it improperly flipped the burden of proof at the first step of its analysis and failed to give effect to the Supreme Court's presumption of legislative good faith in Abbott v. Perez, 138 S. Ct. 2305, 2324 (2018). Consequently, these errors fatally infected its finding of discriminatory intent.Furthermore, once the proper burden and the presumption of good faith are applied, the Challengers fail to meet their burden of showing that the General Assembly acted with discriminatory intent in passing the 2018 Voter-ID Law. The court considered the Arlington Heights factors—the sequence of events leading to enactment, legislative history, and disparate impact—and concluded that they cannot support a finding of discriminatory intent. Therefore, the district court abused its discretion in issuing the preliminary injunction. View "North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. Raymond" on Justia Law

This action concerns the validity of Minn. Stat. 204B.13, subd. 2(c), which addresses the administration of an election when the candidate of a major political party dies after the seventy-ninth day before a general election. Tyler Kistner is the candidate of the Republican Party for the United States House of Representatives in the Second Congressional District of Minnesota; Angela Craig is the incumbent Representative and the candidate of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party for that office; and Jenny Winslow Davies is a voter in the district. The dispute arose from the death of a third candidate in the race, Adam Charles Weeks, the Candidate for the Legal Marijuana Now Party, on September 21, 2020. At issue is whether Minnesota has authority to forego the election for Representative on November 3, 2020, and schedule a special election for February 2021. The district court ruled that the Minnesota statute is likely preempted, ordered that section 204B.13 must not be enforced as to the election on November 3 for Representative from the Second District, and enjoined the Minnesota Secretary of State from refusing to give legal effect to the ballots cast for Representative on November 3.The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's order granting a preliminary injunction. The court agreed with the district court that the Minnesota statute is likely preempted by federal law. Even assuming for the sake of analysis that federal law permits a state to cancel an election and thereby to produce a "failure to elect" in certain extraordinary situations, the court concluded that federal law would allow that course only in truly "exigent" circumstances. The court concluded that the death of candidate Weeks is likely not the sort of exigent circumstance that permits the state to refrain from holding the election for United States Representative on the date prescribed by federal law. Nor do the unofficial results announced by the Secretary of State suggest that the balloting on November 3 failed to elect a Representative. Therefore, the court saw no error in the district court's determination that Craig and Davies would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction, as they would be left without representation in the House of Representatives between the end of the incumbent's term in January 2021 and the seating of a new Representative after a special election in February 2021. Furthermore, the balance of harms and the public interest do not militate against an injunction, especially when there is a likelihood of success on the merits of the complaint. View "Craig v. Simon" on Justia Law

After movants, who were the plaintiffs in a separate but similar case, were denied intervention in the district court, they moved to intervene in the Secretary of State's ongoing appeal concerning signature-verification procedures for ballots.The Fifth Circuit denied the motion to intervene because intervention on appeal is reserved for exceptional cases and movants' reasons for intervening do not come close to that high threshold. The court rejected movants' argument in favor of intervention because their appeal needs to be consolidated with the Secretary's appeal. The court explained that, because both movants and the Secretary are appealing from the same order, both appeals have been docketed under the same case number in this court. Therefore, assuming the motion to intervene in the Secretary's appeal is denied, the same merits panel will hear both the Secretary's appeal of the summary judgment and movants' appeal of the denial of their motion to intervene. The court stated that, to the extent movants want their voices heard, the proper procedure is to move to appear as amici curiae, not to move to intervene. Finally, the court declined to strike the motion. View "Richardson v. Texas Secretary of State" on Justia Law

Minnesota law dictates that election officials only count ballots received by election day. The Minnesota Alliance for Retired Americans Education Fund filed suit against the Secretary, alleging that Minnesota's statutory deadline was unconstitutional. The Secretary and the Alliance entered into a consent decree that essentially made the statutorily-mandated absentee ballot receipt deadline inoperative. After the Minnesota state court confirmed the decree, the Secretary directed election officials to count absentee ballots received up to a week after election day, notwithstanding Minnesota law.Plaintiffs, both Minnesota registered voters and also certified nominees of the Republican Party to be presidential electors, filed suit alleging that the consent decree and the state court's order confirming it violate the United States Constitution. The district court denied plaintiffs' requested injunction, concluding that they lack standing to bring their claims.The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of the preliminary injunction and remanded to the district court to enter an injunction requiring the Secretary and those under his direction to identify, segregate, and otherwise maintain and preserve all absentee ballots received after the deadlines set forth in Minn. Stat. 203B.08, subd. 3.After determining that plaintiffs have Article III and prudential standing to bring their claims, the court considered plaintiffs' constitutional challenge to evaluate the propriety of preliminary injunctive relief rather than remanding for the district court to decide the merits in the first instance. The court held that the Secretary's instructions to count mail-in ballots received up to seven days after Election Day stand in direct contradiction to Minnesota election law governing presidential elections, and plaintiffs have strongly shown likely success on the merits since the Secretary's actions are likely to be declared invalid under the Electors Clause of Article II of the United States Constitution. The court stated that only the Minnesota Legislature, and not the Secretary, has plenary authority to establish the manner of conducting the presidential election in Minnesota. The court also held that the Secretary's plan to count mail-in ballots received after the deadline established by the Minnesota Legislature will inflict irreparable harm to plaintiffs. Furthermore, the balance of the equities and the public interest weigh in favor of the issuance of an injunction. Finally, the court held that the injunction does not violate the Purcell principle. View "Carson v. Simon" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the State, arguing that O.C.G.A. 45-5-3.2 violates the Georgia Constitution and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the extent it allows the State to cancel the November 2020 election for the office of district attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit. Plaintiff sought a preliminary injunction that would require the State to hold the election, which the district court granted.Because the Eleventh Circuit is bound by the Supreme Court of Georgia's decision that O.C.G.A. 45-5-3.2, as challenged here, violates the Georgia Constitution, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by finding that plaintiff established a substantial likelihood of success in her argument that O.C.G.A. 45-5-3.2 violates the Georgia Constitution and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that plaintiff would suffer an irreparable injury unless an injunction was granted, because the State's enforcement of O.C.G.A. 45-5-3.2 would deprive plaintiff of her right to vote in the November 2020 district attorney election. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion by finding that the balance of harms and public interest weigh in favor of granting the injunction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's order granting the preliminary injunction. View "Gonzalez v. Governor of the State of Georgia" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court did not clearly err in finding that House Bill 836's district map violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. HB 836 reduced the size of the board from nine members to seven. Where all nine members previously had come from single-member districts, now only five would, and two would be drawn from at large seats. Plaintiff alleged that the new map would violate section 2 by diluting the strength of Black voters in Sumter County. The district court agreed and entered a remedial order removing the at-large seats and drawing a new map with seven single-member districts instead.The court reviewed the entire record and held that plaintiff adduced ample evidence supporting a finding of vote dilution. The court held that the district court did not clearly err in concluding that plaintiff satisfied all three Gingles factors: first, the undisputed evidence showed that Sumter County's Black residents could form a majority in at least one additional single-member district (and probably in two); second, the Black voters in Sumter County were highly cohesive in ten of the twelve elections studied; and third, White residents vote sufficiently as a bloc to enable them usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate. The court also held that plaintiff established that the totality of the circumstances results in an unequal opportunity for minority voters to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choosing. In this case, the district court did not clearly err by finding that the first, second, fifth, and seventh Senate factors weighed heavily in plaintiff's favor. The district court noted Georgia's, and Sumter County's, painful history of discrimination against its Black residents, emphasizing the high levels of racially polarized voting and observed the lack of success enjoyed by Black candidates in Sumter County. Furthermore, the special master report expressly found an easily achievable remedy available. View "Wright v. Sumter County Board of Elections and Registration" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the enforcement of portions of Mo. Rev. Stat. 115.302, which provides for voting by mail-in ballot due to the ongoing global pandemic. Plaintiffs alleged that the statute violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by treating mail-in ballots differently than absentee ballots, requiring the former to be returned by mail only while allowing the latter to be returned by mail or in-person, either from the voter himself or a relative within the second degree of consanguinity. The district court entered a preliminary injunction in favor of plaintiffs and the Secretary entered a temporary administrative stay of the preliminary injunction.The Eighth Circuit granted the Secretary's motion to stay the injunction pending appeal. The court held that the Secretary has shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits, under the Anderson-Burdick standard, that the requirement that mail-in ballots be returned by USPS mail is a minimal burden and a reasonable, nondiscriminatory restriction. The Secretary has also shown that the State will suffer irreparable harm if the court does not grant the stay, and that the remaining factors of injury to other parties and the public's interest weigh in favor of granting the motion to stay. View "Organization for Black Struggle v. Ashcroft" on Justia Law

The City of Houston contends that it is being sued for a so-called "zombie" law. The City's Charter allows only registered voters to circulate petitions for initiatives and referenda, even though the Supreme Court held a similar law unconstitutional twenty years ago. Plaintiffs, Trent and Trey Pool, sought a preliminary injunction allowing them to collect signatures for their anti-pay-to-play petition as well as a declaratory judgment that the Charter's voter-registration and residency provisions are unconstitutional, permanent injunctive relief against enforcement of those provisions, and nominal damages. Plaintiffs also filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO), which would allow them to circulate the petition through the deadline of July 9, 2019. The district court granted a TRO, allowing plaintiffs to circulate the petition for the next week, but concluded that plaintiffs had not demonstrated an injury sufficient to support standing with regard to future petitions. The district court later dismissed plaintiffs' remaining claims. Although the City now concedes that the qualified-voter requirement is unconstitutional, at issue is whether plaintiffs may obtain a permanent injunction preventing its enforcement.The Fifth Circuit held that, although there would not usually be a reasonable fear of continued enforcement of a zombie law, the history of Houston's qualified-voter requirement gives Trent Pool standing to seek an injunction that would guard against continued chilling of his speech. The court also held that the City has not met its heavy burden of showing that plaintiffs' challenges are moot. Therefore, because there is a reasonable concern that the City might enforce its unconstitutional Charter provision, the court reversed the judgment dismissing this case and remanded for further proceedings. View "Pool v. City of Houston" on Justia Law