Justia Election Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant-appellant West Valley Water District (District) appealed the entry of a stipulated judgment in favor of plaintiff-respondent County of San Bernardino (County) ordering that the District conduct its elections on a statewide general election date starting in November 2022. The sole issue on appeal was whether the District was authorized pursuant to Elections Code section 140521 to designate the statewide primary election date starting in June 2022 for its elections, or whether the District was required to hold its election on a statewide general election date starting in November 2022. The Court of Appeal concluded the District had to hold its election on the statewide general election date starting in November 2022. View "County of San Bernardino v. West Valley Water Dist." on Justia Law

The Alaska lieutenant governor refused to certify an application for a ballot initiative, and the group backing the initiative filed suit. In a court-approved stipulation, the Division of Elections agreed to print the signature booklets and make them available to the initiative’s sponsors without waiting for the court to decide whether the initiative application should have been certified. A voter sued the State, asserting that it would violate the initiative process laid out in article XI, section 3 of the Alaska Constitution if the signature booklets were printed and made available before the initiative had been certified. In response the State and the initiative group entered into a new stipulation providing that the State would not make the signature booklets available until the court ordered it. The superior court granted the State summary judgment in the voter’s suit, concluding that he lacked standing and his case was moot. The voter appealed, arguing he had standing and that his case should have been heard because of two exceptions to the mootness doctrine: the public interest exception and the voluntary cessation exception. Without reaching the issue of standing, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s judgment on mootness grounds, concluding that the court did not abuse its discretion by declining to apply either exception to the doctrine. View "Young v. Alaska" on Justia Law

This case arose out of multiple petitions challenging the constitutionality of Plan L03, the legislative redistricting plan adopted by the Idaho Commission for Reapportionment (“the Commission”) following the 2020 federal census. Petitioners generally argued that Plan L03 split more counties than was required to comport with federal constitutional requirements, rendering Plan L03 unconstitutional under the Idaho Constitution. The petitions were filed in the Idaho Supreme Court's original jurisdiction. Petitioners requested the Court issue a writ of prohibition to restrain the Secretary of State from transmitting a copy of the Commission’s Final Report and Plan L03 to the President Pro Tempore of the Idaho Senate and the Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives. Finding there was no constitutional violation, the Supreme Court declined to issue the writ. View "Durst et al v. ID Comm. for Reapportionment" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Washington Supreme Court's review centered on the amount of reimbursement that counties were entitled to from the State for costs associated with purchasing, installing, and operating additional ballot boxes. In order to answer that question, the Court first had to consider the relationship between RCW 29A.40.170 (the ballot box statute), RCW 29A.04.430 (the reimbursement statute, or "Section 430"), and RCW 43.135.060 (the unfunded mandate statute). The Supreme Court held Section 430 controlled over the unfunded mandate statute and provided reimbursement only of the State’s proportional share for the costs of compliance with the ballot box statute. Further, the Court held that the 2020 amendment of Section 430 did not violate article II, section 37 of the Washington Constitution and that respondents Snohomish, Kittitas, and Whitman Counties could not claim any vested right that would require the Court to invalidate the retroactive effect of Section 430. The Court therefore reversed the order granting partial summary judgment and remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Wash. State Ass'n of Counties v. Washington" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Washington Supreme Court's review was whether the penalty for intentionally concealing the source of political contributions could be based on the amount concealed. Washington voters proposed and passed Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act (FCPA or act), ch. 42.17A RCW. The FCPA compels disclosure and “compelled disclosure may encroach on First Amendment rights by infringing on the privacy of association and belief.” In 2012, California voters were presented with Proposition 37, which would have required some manufacturers to disclose whether packaged food contained genetically modified organisms (GMO). The Grocery Manufacturer’s Association (GMA) and many of its member companies successfully campaigned against Proposition 37, and some received negative responses from the public for doing so. In the wake of the Proposition 37 campaign, Washington sponsors filed Initiative 522, which also would have required GMO labels on packaged food. And like Proposition 37, GMA opposed it. GMA raised more than $14 million to oppose GMO labeling efforts. GMA in turn contributed $11 million to the “No on 522” campaign from the Defense of Brands strategic account. Despite its political activities in Washington, GMA did not register as a political committee with the Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) and did not make any PDC reports until after this lawsuit was filed. In response to the suit, GMA registered “under duress” but, as of the time of trial, still had not filed all of the required reports. The State sued, contending that GMA intentionally, flagrantly, and repeatedly violated the FCPA. The trial court specifically rejected testimony from GMA officers that they had not intended to violate the law, finding “it is not credible that GMA executives believed that shielding GMA’s members as the true source of contributions to GMA’s Defense of Brands Account was legal.” A majority of the Washington Supreme Court concluded GMA did not show that the trial court erred in imposing a punitive sanction under the FCPA based on the amount intentionally concealed. The Court thus affirmed the courts below and remanded for any further proceedings necessary. View "Washington v. Grocery Mfrs. Ass'n" on Justia Law

After losing their bids for the November 2019 elections for Quitman County Chancery and Circuit Clerk, Shirley Smith Taylor and Tea “Windless” Keeler, respectively, filed election contests. In July 2020, following a two-day trial of the consolidated contests, the court entered its Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, dismissing the election contests with prejudice and finding that six enumerated claims brought by Taylor and Keeler were frivolous.Further, the court denied Brenda Wiggs’s and T.H. “Butch” Scipper’s requests that Taylor and Keeler be sanctioned, and that Wiggs and Scipper be awarded attorneys’ fees under Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b) and the Litigation Accountability Act of 1988 (LAA). The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed in part the circuit court’s denial of an award of attorneys’ fees under Rule 11(b) since the court’s decision was not an abuse of discretion. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded in part the circuit court’s decision to deny the imposition of sanctions and award of attorneys’ fees under the LAA in light of its finding that six of Taylor’s and Keeler’s claims were frivolous. View "In Re: Contest of the November 5, 2019 General Election for the Chancery Clerk of Quitman, Mississippi" on Justia Law

Wayne Self lost the election for Leflore County Mississippi District 4 Supervisor on November 5, 2019. He subsequently petitioned the circuit court to contest the election, alleging numerous violations of Mississippi election law relating to absentee ballots and the results of a voting machine in the Rising Sun Precinct. Self contended he received a majority of the legal votes cast, or, in the alternative, that a new election should have been ordered. After a hearing on the matter, a special judge found that Self’s proposed remedy to invalidate the absentee ballots and the results of a voting machine were not supported by the evidence. Aggrieved, Self appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court. After review, the Supreme Court concluded Self failed to prove that: (1) enough illegal votes were cast for Mitchell to change the results or place the results in doubt; or (2) that so many votes are disqualified that the will of the voters cannot be ascertained. "The votes invalidated by the court was 10.8 percent which is less than 30 percent of the total votes cast, so unless fraud, intentional wrongdoing or some other departure from the procedures was present, Self was not entitled to a new election." View "Self v. Mitchell" on Justia Law

In 1973, the Oxnard city council received an initiative petition. Instead of proceeding on that petition, the City ordered the questions placed on the ballot. The majority of voters voted to have an elected mayor with a two-year term. In 2019, the city council adopted a resolution placing Measure B on the March 2020 ballot, seeking to amend the Oxnard City Code to extend the mayor’s term to four years and to establish a limit of three terms for city council members. Two weeks later, Starr delivered an initiative petition, seeking to extend the mayor’s term to four years but prohibiting a person from indefinitely alternating between mayor and council member without a break. The Ventura County Elections Division certified the signatures on Starr’s petition. Instead of placing Starr’s initiative on the ballot, the City exercised its option under Elections Code section 9215(a) to adopt the initiative as an ordinance without alteration.The court of appeal ordered the city to place the initiative on the ballot. The city’s action was a nullity under section 9217: “No ordinance that is either proposed by initiative petition and adopted by the vote of the legislative body of the city without submission to the voters, or adopted by the voters, shall be repealed or amended except by a vote of the people, unless provision is otherwise made in the original ordinance.” View "Starr v. Chaparro" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court declared the congressional-district plan passed by the General Assembly invalid, holding that the General Assembly did not comply with Ohio Const. art. XIX, 1(C)(3)(a) and (b) in passing the plan and that a new congressional-district plan must be passed the complies in full with Article XIX and is not dictated by partisan considerations.At issue was 2021 Sub.S.B. No. 258, which was passed by a simple majority and signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine on November 20, 2021. The bill resulted in districts in which undue political bias was at least, if not more, likely to favor Republican candidates than the 2011 reapportionment that impelled Ohio's constitutional reforms. Petitioners argued that the congressional-district plan violated Article XIX, Section 1(C)(3)(a). The Supreme Court held that the congressional-district plan was invalid in its entirety because it unduly favored the Republican Party and disfavored the Democratic Party and because it unduly split three counties, in violation of Article XIX, Section 1(C)(3)(b). View "Adams v. DeWine" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court denied Relators' petition for writs of mandamus arguing that the Harris County Commissioners Court had stripped more than one million Texans of their right to vote for a commissioner in the 2022 election, holding that this petition could not go forward under settled precedents sharply limiting judicial authority to intervene in ongoing elections.Relators asked the Court to enjoin the use of a map enacted by the commissioners court, claiming to be in possession of an alternative map that lawfully redrew precincts without excluding any voter from consecutive county-commissioner elections. The Supreme Court denied the writ, holding that this Court lacked the ability to address the merits of this petition due to certain timing and nature-of-relief problems discussed in this opinion. View "In re Khanoyan" on Justia Law