Justia Election Law Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's amended final judgment finding that an initiative entitled the "Arizona Fair Elections Act" failed to qualify for the November 8, 2022 ballot, holding that the Act fell short of the required number of valid signatures, and therefore the trial court properly disqualified the initiative from the ballot.At issue in these multiple expedited election appeals and cross-appeals was the interpretation and application of the statutes governing initiative petitions and the method for determining whether an initiative has sufficient valid signatures to qualify for placement on an election ballot. The trial court found that the initiative had an insufficient number of valid signatures and ordered the Secretary of State to rescind the previous determination that the initiative qualified for placement on the ballot. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Plaintiffs failed in their challenge. View "Mussi v. Hobbs" on Justia Law

In 2020, Reardon unsuccessfully ran for Coles County State’s Attorney against the incumbent, Danley. Reardon brought a 42 U.S.C. 1983 lawsuit against public officials (including Danley), the City of Mattoon, and Coles County, alleging violations of his First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit.In 2019, Danley and the Mattoon Police Department (MPD) subpoenaed Reardon’s Facebook account information during an investigation into his potential involvement in a perjury/bribery case. A judge denied Reardon’s motion to quash but declined to release the documents until after a probable cause hearing. The Seventh Circuit noted that section 1983 curtails the availability of injunctive relief against judicial officers.Coles County Board Member Metzger removed a Reardon campaign sign from a resident’s lawn weeks before the election, allegedly mistakenly believing the sign was installed without permission. The Board determined that no further action was needed. Reardon did not sufficiently allege that Metzger was “acting under color of state law,” and Coles County is not liable based on the Board’s alleged ratification of Metzger’s conduct.Two weeks before the election, Mattoon Chief of Police Taylor posted a photo of himself (in uniform) with Danley, inside his office, on the official MPD Facebook page with a caption encouraging people to vote for Danley. Reardon failed to provide any authority to support that Taylor or Danley violated the Constitution. View "Reardon v. Danley" on Justia Law

The federal government funds certain expenses incurred by presidential candidates at specific times during their primary campaigns. Jill Stein, who ran for President in 2016, contends that a temporal limit on this funding unconstitutionally discriminates against minor-party candidates. Stein also contests an administrative ruling that she forfeited the right to document certain costs of winding down her campaign, which could have offset a repayment obligation that she owed the government.   The DC Circuit denied her petition. The court explained that FEC regulations required her to reassert the issue in her written submission for administrative review. Further, Stein argued that the Commission should be estopped from claiming forfeiture because its audit report stated that the winding down costs “estimated” for the period between September 2018 and July 2019 “will be compared to actual winding down costs and will be adjusted accordingly.” The court wrote that it does not read this statement to relieve Stein of her duty to address winding down costs in her request for administrative review, which was filed near the end of that period. The court explained that it recognizes that Stein could not predict the exact amount of future winding down costs. But she could have done much more to alert the FEC that she expected those costs to exceed the estimates in the audit report—and to do so by a substantial amount. View "Jill Stein v. FEC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Greenville Rancheria (Greenville) was a sovereign Indian tribe that owned administrative and medical offices (property) in the City of Red Bluff. Following a contested election, defendant Angela Martin was elected as Greenville’s chairperson, which included the authority to act as Greenville’s chief executive officer. After her election, Martin, along with approximately 20 people, including defendants Andrea Cazares-Diego, Andrew Gonzales, Hallie Hugo, Elijah Martin, and Adrian Hugo, entered the property and refused to leave despite the remaining members of the tribal council ordering them to leave and removing Martin’s authority as chairperson under Greenville’s constitution. Because of defendants’ failure to vacate the property, Greenville filed a verified emergency complaint for trespass and injunctive relief. The trial court granted Greenville a temporary restraining order, but later granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Greenville appealed. The Court of Appeal reversed: defendants did not point to any authority demonstrating the federal government’s intent to preempt state law or deprive state courts of subject matter jurisdiction in property disputes between tribal members occurring on lands outside tribal trust lands. "To conclude we lack jurisdiction over property disputes between tribal members on nontribal lands would limit tribal members’ access to state court, especially considering California courts have subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Public Law 280 over property disputes between tribal members on tribal trust lands. (Section 1360.) Consequently, the state court has jurisdiction to hear Greenville’s dispute against defendants regarding land it owns in fee simple that is not held in trust by the federal government." View "Rancheria v. Martin" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals affirming the trial court's summary judgment to the three named state official defendants in this complaint seeking a temporary injunction related to the August 6, 2020 election, holding that Plaintiff was required to comply with both Tenn. Code Ann. 2-19-143(3) and Tenn. Code Ann. 40-29-202 before he could be re-enfranchised.Plaintiff, a Tennessee resident since 2018, was convicted in 1986 of involuntary manslaughter in Virginia. In 2020, the governor of Virginia granted Plaintiff clemency, thus reinstating his right to vote in Virginia. Later that year, Plaintiff attempted to register to vote in Grainger County, Tennessee but was denied. Plaintiff brought this lawsuit arguing that Tenn. Code Ann. 2-19-143(3) requires the state to re-enfranchise persons convicted of infamous crimes out of state when the governor or the appropriate authority of such other state restores that person's rights of citizenship. The chancery court granted summary judgment for Defendants, and the court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that, to regain the right of suffrage in Tennessee, Plaintiff and other similarly situated individuals must comply with both Tenn. Code Ann. 2-19-143(3) and the additional requirements set forth in Tenn. Code Ann. 40-29-202. View "Falls v. Goins" on Justia Law

At issue in this case are three such Texas laws: Texas Election Code sections 61.003, 61.010, and 85.036 (collectively, the “electioneering laws”). Plaintiff filed this action, alleging that she was unconstitutionally censored under the electioneering laws when she voted in 2018 and that the statutes unconstitutionally “chilled” her right to free speech by criminalizing political expression within polling places. The district court, adopting the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, upheld section 61.010 as constitutional, but concluded that sections 61.003 and 85.036 are facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Both sides appealed, contesting jurisdictional issues as well as the merits.   The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s holding denying Texas’s Secretary of State and Attorney General sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment and dismissed those defendants for lack of jurisdiction. The court affirmed that Plaintiff has standing to bring her claims against the remaining two Defendants. The court also affirmed the district court’s holding that section 61.010 is constitutional. However, the court reversed and rendered the district court’s holding that sections 61.003 and 85.036 are unconstitutional and instead uphold all three electioneering laws. Finally, the court affirmed the district court’s denial of nominal damages. View "Ostrewich v. Nelson" on Justia Law

The U.S. Constitution's Election Clause requires the legislature of each state to prescribe rules governing federal elections. Following the 2020 decennial census, North Carolina’s General Assembly drafted a new federal congressional map. The map was challenged under the North Carolina Constitution as impermissible partisan gerrymandering. The North Carolina Supreme Court acknowledged that gerrymandering claims are outside the reach of federal courts but held that such questions were not beyond the reach of North Carolina courts. The court enjoined the use of the maps but subsequently addressed a remedial map adopted by the trial court, repudiated its holding that gerrymandering claims are justiciable under the state constitution, and dismissed the suits without reinstating the 2021 maps.The Supreme Court first held that it had jurisdiction to review the Elections Clause holding. The court’s decision to withdraw its second decision and overrule the first did not moot the case; it did not amend the judgment concerning the 2021 maps nor alter the first decision’s analysis of the federal issue.The Elections Clause does not vest exclusive and independent authority in state legislatures to set the rules regarding federal elections. In prescribing such rules, they remain subject to state judicial review and to state constitutional constraints. When legislatures make laws, they are bound by the documents that give them life. When a state legislature carries out its federal constitutional power to prescribe rules regulating federal elections, it acts both as a lawmaking body created and bound by its state constitution and as the entity assigned particular authority by the U.S. Constitution. Both constitutions restrain that exercise of power. Federal courts must not abandon their duty to exercise judicial review. The Court declined to decide whether the North Carolina Supreme Court strayed beyond the limits derived from the Elections Clause. View "Moore v. Harper" on Justia Law

After the 2020 presidential election, Michigan election officials canvassed the results. Michigan law allows any candidate with a “good-faith belief” that he lost the election due to “fraud or mistake” to request a recount within 48 hours after the canvass. No candidate did so. On November 23, the bipartisan Board unanimously certified results indicating that Biden had won the state by 154,188 votes. On November 25, Plaintiffs sued several “state defendants,” asserting that they had “fraudulently manipulat[ed] the vote” through “a wide-ranging interstate—and international—collaboration” and that unspecified “foreign adversaries” and “hostile foreign governments” had accessed Dominion voting machines; that Detroit election officials had participated in countless violations of state election law, including an “illegal vote dump”; and that expert analysis showed that the election results were fraudulent. The Supreme Court declined to intervene. Michigan’s electors cast their votes for Biden. Detroit served plaintiffs and their attorneys with a “safe harbor” letter, warning that it would seek sanctions under Rule 11 if plaintiffs did not voluntarily dismiss their complaint. Plaintiffs did not respond. The district court held that plaintiffs’ counsel had violated Rule 11 by filing their suit for an improper purpose, failing to conduct an adequate prefiling inquiry into the legal and factual merits of their claims; and ordered plaintiffs’ attorneys to pay the reasonable legal fees of the moving defendants.The Sixth Circuit affirmed in part. The selective-enforcement claim (42 U.S.C. 1983) and a state-law claim were non-sanctionable under Rule 11. Plaintiffs’ other claims were all sanctionable. Counsel are liable for the defendants’ reasonable attorney’s fees after December 14 because they failed to dismiss their case after it had concededly become moot the allegations in the complaint itself refuted allegations about the Dominion system used in Michigan. Allegations of harassment and intimidation, however, were credible. View "King v. Whitmer" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court held that Ariz. Rev. Stat. 19-118.01 does not facially violate the First Amendment where it only prohibits per-signature compensation to petition circulators.A political action committee (PAC) hired AZ Petition Partners to collect signatures for the Invest in Education Act initiative. Initiative opponents brought this action for declaratory judgment against the PAC, alleging that Petitioner Partners' hourly rates and incentive programs violated section 19-118.01. Thereafter, the State filed fifty charges against Petition Partners. The court of appeals concluded that section 19-118.01(A) bans more than just per-signature payments, and therefore, the statute facially violates the First Amendment. The Supreme Court vacated the court of appeals' opinion and remanded the case, holding that section 19-118.01 only prohibits per-signature compensation. View "AZ Petition Partners LLC v. Honorable Thompson" on Justia Law

Appellants Sarah Thompson, Kevin Muldowney, and Edward Metz filed three, virtually identical complaints in their respective counties on December 6, 2022, alleging that the voting system used that day in the runoff election for a United States Senate seat did not comply with Georgia law. The trial courts entered orders either dismissing the complaints or denying relief. Because the complaints did not name any defendant and because Appellants failed to serve any defendant, the trial courts correctly determined that they had no authority to grant the relief sought. Accordingly, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed in all three cases. View "In re: December 6, 2022 General Election Ballot" on Justia Law