Justia Election Law Opinion Summaries

The case involves the Tennessee Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) challenging a state policy that requires some convicted felons to submit additional documentation to confirm their eligibility to vote. The NAACP argued that this policy violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). A district court agreed with the NAACP and permanently enjoined the policy in the middle of the 2024 election cycle. Tennessee's Secretary of State and Coordinator of Elections appealed this decision and sought a stay of the injunction pending appeal.The district court's decision was based on the finding that the NAACP had standing to challenge the policy and that the policy violated the NVRA. The court held that the policy was unnecessary for determining the eligibility of those with felony convictions as the state had other information at its disposal to make that decision.The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted the stay for two reasons. First, the injunction triggered the Supreme Court’s “Purcell principle,” which instructs federal courts not to disrupt state election rules close to an election. Second, the court found that the NAACP likely did not present enough evidence to prove its standing to challenge the Documentation Policy. The court concluded that the NAACP's claim that the policy forced it to divert its resources to help those convicted of felonies track down the records they need to register was not supported by specific facts. View "Tennessee Conference of the NAACP v. Lee" on Justia Law

A group of Ohio voters sought to amend the Ohio Constitution through a ballot initiative. To do so, they had to submit their proposed amendment, a summary of the amendment, and one thousand supporting signatures to the Ohio Attorney General, who then had to certify that the summary was a fair and truthful statement of the proposed amendment. The Attorney General, David Yost, declined to certify the plaintiffs' summary on at least six occasions. After the most recent denial, the plaintiffs sought review from the Supreme Court of Ohio, which declined to grant expedited review. The plaintiffs then filed a complaint in federal district court, alleging that the Attorney General's enforcement of the certification requirement violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by creating an unconstitutional obstacle to their ballot access and their ability to advocate for their proposed amendment. The district court denied the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunctive relief.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court's decision. The appellate court found that the plaintiffs had standing to bring their claims and were not barred by sovereign immunity. The court also determined that the certification requirement imposed a severe burden on the plaintiffs' core political speech, and that the state had not shown that the requirement was narrowly tailored to its interests. The court therefore concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim. The court also found that the remaining factors for granting a preliminary injunction weighed in the plaintiffs' favor. The court therefore granted the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunctive relief, enjoining the Attorney General from enforcing the certification requirement against the plaintiffs. View "Brown v. Yost" on Justia Law

The plaintiffs, Reverend Kenneth Simon, Reverend Lewis W. Macklin, II, and Helen Youngblood, collectively known as the "Simon Parties," filed a lawsuit against the Ohio Redistricting Commission and several of its members. They alleged that Ohio's congressional districts violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment. The Simon Parties requested a three-judge court under 28 U.S.C. § 2284, which the Ohio Redistricting Commission opposed, and moved to dismiss the complaint.The district court denied the motion to convene a three-judge court and granted the motions to dismiss. The court also denied all other pending motions. The Simon Parties appealed this decision.The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court's decision. The court found that the district court incorrectly determined that the Simon Parties' Fourteenth Amendment claim did not raise a substantial federal question for jurisdictional purposes. The court stated that the Simon Parties' allegations on this claim were sufficient to establish federal jurisdiction. The court concluded that the district court lacked jurisdiction as a single judge to adjudicate any other pending motion because it was required to convene a three-judge court under 28 U.S.C. § 2284.The court reversed the district court's order denying the motion for a three-judge court, vacated the district court's orders granting the motions to dismiss and denying the motion for temporary restraining order and motion for class certification, and remanded the case to the district court with instructions for it immediately to initiate the procedures to convene a three-judge court under 28 U.S.C. § 2284. View "Simon v. DeWine" on Justia Law

In this case, James R. Fouts, the former mayor of Warren, Michigan, brought a lawsuit against defendants including the Warren City Council and the City Election Commission. He claimed that they violated his First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights by applying a new term-limit provision retroactively, which prevented him from running for a fifth term as the city's mayor. The term-limit provision was part of an amendment to the city’s charter, passed by voters, that limited the eligibility of certain city offices to three complete terms or twelve years. Despite having already served four terms as mayor, Fouts attempted to run for a fifth term in 2023, but was disqualified.The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Fouts’ claims. The court held that Fouts did not have a fundamental right to run for public office, and thus his First Amendment rights were not violated. The court also ruled that the term-limit provision did not apply retroactively, as it only prohibited Fouts from running for a fifth term, and did not impose new obligations or deprive him of any existing rights based on his past conduct. Therefore, his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights were not violated. Lastly, the court found that Fouts failed to demonstrate that he was intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated without any rational basis, and thus his Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights were not violated. View "Fouts v. Warren City Council" on Justia Law

In the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Alison Kareem brought a case against the Ohio Secretary of State, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, and the Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney. Kareem challenged two Ohio state election laws, which prohibited her from displaying her marked ballot to others as a violation of her First Amendment rights. Kareem refrained from displaying a photograph of her marked ballot online due to these laws. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, arguing that Kareem lacked Article III standing.The Appeals Court, however, reversed the district court's order and remanded it for further proceedings. The court held that Kareem had demonstrated a credible threat of enforcement of the Ohio laws, which constituted an injury in fact, a requirement for Article III standing. The court found that Kareem's fear of enforcement, given the possible criminal punishment, the defendants' public statements that displaying marked ballots was illegal, and past instances of enforcement, was not merely subjective or self-imposed. The court also found that Kareem's alleged violation of her First Amendment rights was fairly traceable to the defendants and that the relief she requested was likely to remedy her alleged injury, thus meeting the causation and redressability requirements of Article III standing. The court did not rule on the merits of Kareem's First Amendment claims, leaving that for the district court to decide. View "Kareem v. Cuyahoga County Board of Elections" on Justia Law

Ohio requires that political parties elect a central committee composed of various party members throughout the state. Ohio Rev. Code 3517.01 and establishes rules for the gender composition and the term length of the central committee members, requiring two members, “one a man and one a woman, representing either each congressional district in the state or each senatorial district in the state. Ames, a member of the Ohio Republican Party, was the male representative of the 32nd District on the ORP Central Committee. Although he no longer serves on the ORP Central Committee, Ames alleges that he intends to run in the future and that both the gender and term-length provisions violate his associational rights by interfering with party members’ ability to self-govern and freely choose their leadership.The district court concluded that Ames lacked standing and dismissed his claims. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, noting that independent of the statute, the ORP’s internal rules contain an identical gender provision and a compatible two-year term-length provision. Ames did not challenge the ORP’s ability to maintain those internal rules, nor did he present any allegation or evidence that the ORP would change its internal practices in the absence of 3517.03, so Ames failed to allege a redressable injury. View "Ames v. LaRose" on Justia Law

Since 1979, Tennessee has made it a crime for anyone other than election officials to distribute the state’s official form for applying to vote absentee. During much of this time, Tennessee kept close guard of this form to deter fraud. Election officials now make the form widely available online so that eligible voters may easily apply. According to the Plaintiffs, this change has rendered the ban on distributing the application form “outdated.” They want to distribute the form while encouraging absentee voting at their get-out-the-vote drives. They allege that the First Amendment gives them the right to do so and that, because they seek to distribute the form while expressing a political message, the ban is subject to strict scrutiny.The Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Tennessee’s ban prohibits an act--distributing a government form--that qualifies as conduct, not speech. While the First Amendment provides some protection to “expressive conduct,” strict scrutiny does not apply to Tennessee’s ban because it neutrally applies no matter the message that a person seeks to convey and because it burdens nobody’s ability to engage in actual speech. At most, the Supreme Court’s lenient First Amendment test for neutral laws that regulate conduct applies and the ban survives that nondemanding test, View "Lichtenstein v. Hargett" 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

In 2019, Tennessee imposed new requirements for conducting voter-registration activities. The law required individuals to register with the state; complete state-administered “training”; file a “sworn statement” agreeing to obey Tennessee’s voter-registration laws; and return “completed” voter-registration forms within 10 days. Plaintiffs argued that the law significantly burdened their rights of speech and association, in violation of the First Amendment, and was unconstitutionally vague. The court stated that the defendants had offered “little, if any, evidence” in support of the Act’s requirements, “despite having had an opportunity” and held that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on the merits, further noting “the vagueness about the scope and nature" of the Act. The court “ordered” the defendants “not to take any steps to implement” or otherwise enforce the challenged provisions. The defendants did not appeal. Seven months later, the state repealed the provisions.The district court approved a stipulation to dismiss the case without prejudice. Plaintiffs were awarded attorneys’ fees under 42 U.S.C. 1988, as the “prevailing party.” The Sixth Circuit affirmed. A preliminary injunction that, as a practical matter, concludes the litigation in the plaintiffs’ favor and that is not challenged on appeal, is, in this case, enduring enough to support prevailing-party status under section 1988. View "Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP v. Hargett" on Justia Law

Weiser, a Republican donor and chair of the Michigan Republican Party (MRP), and the MRP alleged that an interpretative statement (recall exemption) and a declaratory ruling issued by the Michigan Secretary of State in the 1980s violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by allowing supporters of Governor Whitmer to make or receive contributions on more favorable terms than Weiser or the MRP with respect to the 2022 gubernatorial election. The Michigan Campaign Finance Act (MCFA) limits donations to candidates. The recall exceptions clarify that the general election contribution limits do not apply to contributions made to an officeholder to defend against a recall effort. During a recall effort, the officeholder’s committee may “accept contributions in excess of section [169.252’s] contribution limitations.” Contributions made during an active recall effort must be so designated and must be deposited into the committee’s account. If a recall election never materializes, the committee must divest itself of these contributions. In 2020 and 2021, apparently in response to measures to combat the spread of COVID-19, 27 recall efforts were launched by Michigan voters. Whitmer’s committee collected and subsequently disgorged leftover recall funds, refunding $250,000 to an individual donor and about $3.5 million to the Democratic Party.The district court dismissed the action for lack of standing. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Weiser and the MRP fail to plausibly demonstrate that the recall exception prevents Weiser or the MRP from equally supporting their preferred gubernatorial candidate. View "Weiser v. Benson" on Justia Law