Justia Election Law Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the circuit court ordering the removal of Herbert Townes and David Silvestro from the City of Hopewell Electoral Board, holding that the circuit court erred by setting the burden of proof as a preponderance of the evidence and abused its discretion by excluding certain evidence.Specifically, the Supreme Court held (1) because removal proceedings are quasi-criminal in nature due to the high penalty they impose on a removed official, the correct burden of proof is clear and convincing evidence, a higher standard than that applied by the circuit court in this case; (2) the circuit court did not improperly allow the Commonwealth to expand its grounds for removal beyond the grounds pled in its petition for removal; and (3) the circuit court abused its discretion when it excluded certain defense evidence at trial. View "Townes v. Virginia State Board of Elections" on Justia Law

Petitioner Bill Sandlin filed a petition for mandamus relief to challenge the candidate statements submitted by Real Parties in Interest Ed Pope, Jaci Woods, and Frank McGill (Real Parties) in their candidacy for positions on the Irvine City Council. Petitioner alleged Real Parties’ candidate statements would mislead voters about the current city council’s actions and the facts concerning a failed referendum to relocate the site of a planned state veterans cemetery. Real Parties opposed the petition and filed a special motion to strike under the anti-SLAPP statute. While Real Parties’ anti-SLAPP motion was pending, the trial court denied the mandamus petition in its entirety, finding Petitioner’s challenge to Pope’s candidate statement was untimely, and finding he failed to establish Woods’s or McGill’s candidate statements were false, misleading, or otherwise barred by the Elections Code. The court then denied Real Parties’ anti-SLAPP motion as moot, and further found it was barred by the public interest litigation exemption to the anti-SLAPP statute. After reviewing their anti-SLAPP motion de novo, the Court of Appeal concluded the motion was not moot, the public interest litigation exemption was inapplicable, and the motion should have been granted. View "Sandlin v. McLaughlin" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the order of the circuit court that reversed in part an order declaring the results for a town council election entered by the Harpers Ferry Election Contest Tribunal following an election contest trial, holding that the circuit court properly concluded that four provisional ballots cast in the 2019 Harpers Ferry municipal election should be counted but erred in affirming the Tribunal's decision that Nancy Singleton Case lacked standing to participate in the election contest.The circuit court concluded that the Tribunal erred by concluding that four provision ballots cast during the 2019 municipal election should not be counted. Petitioners appealed, arguing that the circuit court erred in substituting its view of the evidence to find that the four provisional ballots should have been counted. Respondents cross-assigned error to the circuit court's decision that the Tribunal did not err in concluding that Case lacked standing to participate in the election contest. The Supreme Court reversed in part, holding that the circuit court erred by affirming the Tribunal's finding that Case lacked standing to participate in the election contest. View "Johnson v. Case" on Justia Law

This appeal arose from the State’s action limiting the people's constitutional right to legislate directly by initiative. A proposed initiative instituting three substantive changes to Alaska's election laws was submitted to the lieutenant governor for review, certification and printing signature booklets. Determining the initiative violated a constitutional requirement that proposed initiative bills be confined to one subject, the lieutenant governor denied certification. The initiative's sponsors filed an action in superior court to challenge that decision. The superior court concluded, contrary to the lieutenant governor, that the initiative's various provisions were confined to the single subject of "election reform" and it accordingly should have been certified. The Court directed the State distribute petition booklets for the sponsors to collect signatures for placing the initiative on a future election ballot. The lieutenant governor and State elections officials appealed the superior court decision. The Alaska Supreme Court determined the superior court correctly adhered to the Supreme Court's prior interpretation of the relevant provisions of the constitution. Furthermore, the Court rejected the request to reverse precedent that the people's power to initiate laws generally was equivalent to that of the legislature. View "Meyer v. Alaskans for Better Elections" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit alleging that the CPD routinely endorses and supports Republican and Democratic nominees at the expense of third-party candidates, and that the CPD uses subjective and biased criteria for selecting debate participants. Specifically, plaintiffs challenged the 15% polling criterion, which the CPD used to determine eligibility for participation in the debates preceding the 2012 Presidential election. Plaintiffs also challenged the Commission's denial of its request to initiate a rulemaking to change its rules to prohibit debate sponsors from using public opinion polls as a criterion for eligibility.Applying de novo review, the DC Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Commission. The court held that plaintiffs failed to show that the Commission's decisionmaking was arbitrary and capricious where the Commission offered detailed explanations in support of its view that plaintiffs failed to show impermissible bias against independent candidates or in favor of candidates from the two major political parties. The court also held that the Commission acted reasonably in determining that a 15% polling threshold is an objective requirement. Finally, because the court has found that the Commission acted reasonably in reaching its decisions, the court held that the Commission did not err by electing not to initiate a rulemaking. View "Level the Playing Field v. Federal Election Commission" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court granted a writ of mandamus ordering the school board to certify a petition proposing the transfer of territory from one school district to another and certify the transfer proposal to the board of elections for placement on the ballot at the August 4 special election, holding that a writ of mandamus was warranted.Petitioner, a qualified elector in the territory proposed to be transferred, filed a mandamus complaint alleging that the school board failed to comply with its statutory obligations to promptly certify the petition and the proposal to the board of elections and that the school board's unwarranted delay caused the transfer proposal to miss the deadline for certification to the August 4 ballot. Petitioner also sought a writ ordering the board of elections to place the proposal on the August 4 ballot. The Supreme Court granted the writ as to the school board and denied it as to the elections board, holding (1) the school board had the opportunity to certify the proposal for placement on the August 4 special election ballot but declined to do so for reasons outside its authority; and (2) Petitioner's mandamus claim against the elections board was not ripe. View "State ex rel. Cook v. Bowling Green City Schools Board of Education" on Justia Law

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Texas Governor Abbott postponed the May 2020 primary runoff elections to July 14; doubled the period for early voting by personal appearance; and declared that election officials would issue further guidance on social distancing and other precautions. The Democratic Party sought injunctive and declaratory relief that those eligible to vote by mail include all “eligible voter[s], regardless of age and physical condition . . . if they believe they should practice social distancing in order to hinder the known or unknown spread of a virus or disease.” The state trial court granted a preliminary injunction; an interlocutory appeal stayed the injunction. Texas Attorney General Paxton issued a statement, indicating that fear of contracting the Virus unaccompanied by a qualifying sickness or physical condition does not constitute a disability under the Texas Election Code for purposes of receiving a ballot by mail.The plaintiffs filed federal claims that Texas’s rules for voting by mail discriminate by age, restrict political speech, are unconstitutionally vague, and that Paxton’s open letter was a threat constituting voter intimidation. The Fifth Circuit denied relief, referring to the district court’s “audacity” in entering a sweeping preliminary injunction, weeks before the election, that requires officials to distribute mail-in ballots to any eligible voter who wants one. The Constitution principally entrusts the safety and the health of the people to politically accountable state officials The spread of the Virus has not given unelected federal judges a roving commission to rewrite state election code. View "Texas Democratic Party v. Abbott" on Justia Law

In this matter where the Attorney General requested the Supreme Court's opinion as to the validity of a citizen initiative petition circulated pursuant to Fla. Const. Art. XI, 3, the Supreme Court held that the proposed initiative, entitled "Prohibits possession of defined assault weapons," should not be placed on the ballot.While the parties raised several issues for the Supreme Court's consideration, the Court addressed only the dispositive issue of whether the ballot summary affirmatively misleads voters regarding the exemption addressed in the next to last sentence of the ballot summary. The Supreme Court concluded that the Initiative could not be placed on the ballot because the ballot summary was affirmatively misleading and did not comply with Fla. Stat. 101.161(1). View "Advisory Opinion to Attorney General Re Prohibits Possession of Defined Assault Weapons" on Justia Law

The Libertarian Party filed suit against the Secretary of State of Georgia, alleging that Georgia's ballot-access requirements for third-party and independent candidates violated their associational rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and their Equal Protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.The Eleventh Circuit vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment to the Secretary, holding that the district court's failure to apply the Supreme Court's test for the constitutionality of ballot-access requirements, as articulated in Anderson v. Celebreeze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983), constitutes reversible error. Accordingly, the court remanded to the district court with instructions to conduct in the first instance the Anderson test and to consider the Party's Equal Protection claim. View "Cowen v. Georgia Secretary of State" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's order of a preliminary injunction entered in favor of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and candidates for delegate seats who, if elected, would be pledged to Yang and fellow Democratic candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders. Yang, his delegates, and the Sanders delegates challenged the New York State Board of Elections' decision to remove all qualified candidates from the ballot, with the exception of former Vice President Joseph Biden, and cancel the Democratic presidential primary. The Board cancelled the Democratic presidential primary based on the coronavirus pandemic, claiming that doing so would further the State's interests in minimizing social contacts to reduce the spread of the virus and in focusing its limited resources on the management of other contested primary elections.At issue in this appeal was whether Yang, his delegates, and the Sanders delegates have demonstrated an entitlement to preliminary injunctive relief that reverses the effects of the Board's decision by requiring Yang and Sanders to be reinstated to the ballot, and the Democratic presidential primary to be conducted along with the other primary elections set for June 23, 2020.The court held that plaintiffs and the Sanders delegates have adequately established their entitlement to preliminary injunctive relief on the basis that the Board's decision unduly burdened their rights of free speech and association. The court held that plaintiffs and the Sanders delegates have made a strong showing of irreparable harm absent injunctive relief; demonstrated a clear or substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claims under the First and Fourteenth Amendments; and demonstrated that the balance of the equities tips in their favor and that the public interest would be served adequately by the district court's preliminary injunction. The court held that the district court did not err or abuse its discretion in granting the application for a preliminary injunction, which was carefully tailored to secure the constitutional rights at stake and to afford the Board sufficient time and guidance to carry out its obligations to the electorate and to the general public. View "Yang v. Kosinski" on Justia Law