Law Commons^™

One Vote, Two Votes, Three Votes, Four: How Ranked Choice Voting Burdens Voting Rights And More, Brandon Bryer

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

The National Popular Vote On Trial, Keaton Barnes

Arkansas Law Review

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Peopl to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them …

Yazzie V. Hobbs: The 2020 Election And Voting By Mail On- And Off-Reservation In Arizona, Jean Reith Schroedel, Kara Mazareas, Joseph Dietrich, Jamaica Bacus-Crawford

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

During the 2020 election, voting by mail was touted as a way to safely vote from home and avoid the risks of contracting COVID-19. While voting by mail is definitely safer than in-person voting, it also assumes that all citizens have equal access to the mail services needed for voting by mail. Lawyers, acting on behalf of Navajo plaintiffs in Arizona, argued in Yazzie et al. v. Hobbs (2020) that voters living on the Navajo Nation faced impermissible barriers in accessing voting by mail. They provided evidence showing there was limited mail service on the reservation and that mail delivery …

Time To Mail It In? A Survey Of 2020 Voting Rights Issues In Arkansas And Recommendations For More Inclusive Elections, Kim Vu-Dinh

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

The highly contagious COVID-19 pandemic, combined with over fifty lawsuits brought by former President Donald Trump, made the general election of 2020 one of the most controversial in the history of the United States. Accusations of voter disenfranchisement proliferated across the nation and were initiated by members of both sides of the political spectrum, even before Election Day. Arkansas was no exception to this rule. In 2020, multiple Arkansas lawsuits highlighted the weaknesses of the state’s voter infrastructure, particularly with regard to the absentee ballot process. Voting-by-mail was particularly important in the pandemic year when long lines became a public …

Trumped: Intentional Voter Suppression In The Wake Of The 2020 Election, Wesley N. Watts

Mercer Law Review

There was nothing normal about the year 2020. For just the third time in history, an American president was impeached, world icons John Lewis and Kobe Bryant passed away, the country of Australia was devastated by brushfires that burned some forty-six million acres of land, and The United States faced a racial reckoning the likes of which had been unseen since the Civil Rights era. All of this took place on the heels of a global pandemic that has killed more than 4.3 million people to date and has infected 10% of the global population. These events of the year …

A Guide To The 87th Texas Legislative Session, José Menéndez, Pearl D. Cruz

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Challenges and potential solutions during the 87th Texas Legislative session.

Voting As Exclusion, Ava Ayers

Fordham Law Review

This Essay considers two prevalent narratives about voting. In one narrative, voting expresses the civic virtue of the voter. In another, voting is an expression of inclusion in our political community’s circle of membership. I argue that although both narratives are true, and important, there is a third narrative that shadows them both. In this third narrative, voting affirms the exclusion of millions of people from our political community. The stories we tell about voting are incomplete and, sometimes, harmful.

The Illiberalization Of American Election Law: A Study In Democratic Deconsolidation, James A. Gardner

Fordham Law Review

For many years, the dominant view among American election law scholars has been that the U.S. Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence of democratic practice got off to a promising start during the mid-twentieth century but has since then slowly deteriorated into incoherence. In light of the United States’ recent turn toward populist authoritarianism, that view needs to be substantially revised. With the benefit of hindsight, it now appears that the Supreme Court has functioned, in its management of the constitutional jurisprudence of democracy, as a vector of infection—a kind of super-spreader of populist authoritarianism. There is, sadly, nothing unusual these days …

Election Observation Post-2020, Rebecca Green

Fordham Law Review

The United States is in the midst of a crisis in confidence in elections, despite the many process protections baked into every stage of election administration. Part of the problem is that few Americans know just how rigorous the protections in place are, and most Americans have no concept of how modern elections are run. Election observation statutes are intended to provide a window for members of the public to learn about and oversee the process and to satisfy themselves that elections are fair and that outcomes are reliable. Yet in 2020, in part due to unforeseen pandemic conditions, election …

The Independent State Legislature Doctrine, Michael T. Morley

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. Constitution grants authority to both regulate congressional elections and determine the manner in which a state chooses its presidential electors specifically to the legislature of each state, rather than to the state as an entity. The independent state legislature doctrine teaches that, because a legislature derives its power over federal elections directly from the Constitution in this manner, that authority differs in certain important respects from the legislature’s general police powers that it exercises under the state constitution. Although the doctrine was applied on several occasions in the nineteenth century, it largely fell into desuetude in the years …

Compulsory Voting And Black Citizenship, Ekow N. Yankah

Fordham Law Review

Protesting Black votes is part of our history of rejecting Black Americans as legitimate wielders of political power and contesting the fullness of Black citizenship. Obviously, hostility toward viewing Black Americans as deserving of the rights owed to other Americans is present in nearly every aspect of American life. But, among the oldest and most contentious hostilities—from the Civil War to Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement to contemporary voter suppression efforts—has been the resistance against Black votes. Any opportunity to quell this locus of racial animus calls for urgent address. Particularly, at this moment, when long-standing prophylactic measures such …

Free And Fair: Judicial Intervention In Elections Beyond The Purcell Principle And Anderson-Burdick Balancing, Danika Elizabeth Watson

Fordham Law Review

The United States’s politically charged 2020 federal election, conducted in the midst of a global pandemic, seismically shook the fault lines of state and local elections administration nationwide. Voters, candidates, parties, states, and political campaigns brought hundreds of claims to the courts, seeking judicial intervention to protect equity in their voting rights. The 2020 pandemic election cases demonstrated that Equal Protection claims relying on the Anderson-Burdick balancing test are both overly reliant on judicial discretion and highly vulnerable to invalidation under the Purcell principle. This Note examines the equal protection challenges raised in courts throughout the country in 2020 to …

Reducing Election Litigation, Derek T. Muller

Fordham Law Review

Which candidate’s name should be listed first on a ballot? Should inactive voters’ names appear printed in polling place books? Should elections be conducted exclusively by mail? Should online voter registration be available to prospective voters? When voters sign a petition to help a candidate appear on the ballot, must the petition’s circulator reside in the state? These are the questions that ordinary election administration rules answer. There might be better or worse rules. These rules might advance one set of benefits in exchange for another set of costs. They could benefit one candidate or group over another. Like every …

Excessive Judicialization, Extralegal Interventions, And Violent Insurrection: A Snapshot Of Our 59th Presidential Election, Jerry H. Goldfeder

Fordham Law Review

The Symposium included in this issue of the Fordham Law Review provides scholars and lawyers with the opportunity to think about some of the most provocative issues related to the way we elect our chief executive. When first conceived, this Symposium was meant to expand and elevate the discourse. Many of the participating authors have thought and written about these matters for years. It was our hope that, after fifty-nine presidential elections, we could shape the debate—and perhaps reform the law—for our next presidential election, our country’s sixtieth. Little did we realize at the inception of this project that the …

Reforms For Presidential Candidate Death And Inability: From The Conventions To Inauguration Day, John Rogan

Fordham Law Review

The 2020 presidential election involved several significant threats to the health and safety of the candidates. But dangers to presidential candidates and presidents-elect have been present before. Despite previous candidate vacancies and near misses, the procedures for how to address many of these contingencies have shortcomings. Some scenarios are left unaddressed. The policies for other situations might be difficult to use or could result in undemocratic outcomes. This Article discusses possible reforms for addressing disability or death of presidential candidates from the time they are nominated at their political parties’ conventions to when they are sworn into office on Inauguration …

How States Can Avoid Overcrowded Ballots But Still Protect Voter Choice, Richard Winger

Fordham Law Review

Since the beginning of government-printed ballots for federal and state offices in 1889, state legislatures have been wrestling with the problem of how many signatures should be required for independent candidates and new political parties to get on the ballot. Laws on this subject are very volatile; there is not a single instance in United States history in which applicable state laws were the same for two consecutive presidential elections. The volatility increased in 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that overly strict ballot access laws for new parties and independent candidates violatetheU.S.Constitution. Sincethen,every state has been sued by …

Reifying Anderson-Burdick: Voter Protection In The Time Of Pandemic And Beyond, Keeley Gogul

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free Speech Has Gotten Very Expensive: Rethinking Political Speech Regulation In A Post-Truth World, John A. Barrett, Jr.

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Protecting free speech has been a foundational principle of American democracy since the nation’s founding. A core element of free speech has long been a prohibition on regulating political speech. The principle behind this protection holds that citizens are free to make whatever political pronouncements they wish and that their speech shall remain free from government suppression. Even within the limited exceptions to unfettered political speech, like defamation or libel, the speech is not banned but may merely result in liability. A premise underlying this view is that competing viewpoints, by being made available to us all, will allow …

A New Way For Voting In American Elections: Addressing The Patentability Of A Blockchain Mail-In Voting System, Brandon D. Waller

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The novel corona virus turned life upside down throughout the world in 2020. One of its many impacts was the fear it gave people of going out in public as doing such could increase the likelihood of contraction. This disease happened to come about during an election year in the United States and this raised many questions about how voting could be safely conducted. A hot topic debate took over America as to whether or not mail-in voting would suffice. The United States Postal Service sought to find a reliable way to conduct mail-in voting and filed for a patent …

The Meaning, History, And Importance Of The Elections Clause, Eliza Sweren-Becker, Michael Waldman

Washington Law Review

Historically, the Supreme Court has offered scant attention to or analysis of the Elections Clause, resulting in similarly limited scholarship on the Clause’s original meaning and public understanding over time. The Clause directs states to make regulations for the time, place, and manner of congressional elections, and grants Congress superseding authority to make or alter those rules.

But the 2020 elections forced the Elections Clause into the spotlight, with Republican litigants relying on the Clause to ask the Supreme Court to limit which state actors can regulate federal elections. This new focus comes on the heels of the Clause serving …

Undue Deference To States In The 2020 Election Litigation, Joshua A. Douglas

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on so much of our lives, including how to run our elections. Yet the federal courts have refused to respond appropriately to the dilemma that many voters faced when trying to participate in the 2020 election. Instead, the courts—particularly the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts—invoked a narrow test that unduly defers to state election administration and fails to protect adequately the fundamental right to vote.

In constitutional litigation, a law usually must satisfy a two-part test: (1) does the state have an appropriate reason for the law and (2) is the law properly …

Baby & Bathwater: Standing In Election Cases After 2020, Steven J. Mulroy

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The current consensus among commentators is that the flood of cases challenging the 2020 presidential election results was almost completely meritless. This consensus is correct as to the ultimate result, but not as to the courts’ treatment of standing. In their (understandable) zeal to reject sometimes frivolous attempts to overturn a legitimate election and undermine public confidence in our electoral system, many courts were too quick to rule that plaintiffs lacked standing. These rulings resulted in unjustified sweeping rulings that voters were not injured even if their legal votes were diluted by states accepting illegal votes; that campaigns did not …

Fighting A New Wave Of Voter Suppression: Securing College Students’ Right To Vote Through The Twenty-Sixth Amendment’S Enforcement Clause, Ryan D'Ercole

Washington and Lee Law Review

Throughout the 1960s, young people protested for racial and LGBTQ+ equality, women’s rights, and an end to the Vietnam war. In the process, they earned the most fundamental right— the right to vote.

Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1971, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment was ratified. In addition to lowering the voting age to eighteen, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment prescribed that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.” But in the fifty years since ratification, states have continued to enact laws that abridge the right to …

Case Note: Avangrid Networks, Inc. V. Secretary Of State, Grady F. Hogan

Maine Law Review

Citizen initiatives and referendums are important tools for participatory democracy. Because initiatives often concern contentious public policy matters, opponents of pending initiatives have at times turned to the courts to prevent particular initiatives from appearing on upcoming ballots. Courts typically will adjudicate such pre-election challenges when plaintiffs assert the proscribed procedural requirements for voting on an initiative have not been met or when plaintiffs allege an initiative’s subject-matter is outside the constitutionally delineated scope of permissible initiative content. However, because of the ripeness justiciability doctrine that requires a concrete, certain, and immediate legal problem, courts generally will not adjudicate pre-election …

Partisan Or Precedent: The History Of Nominating Supreme Court Judges In Presidential Election Years, Hattie Jefferies

Helms School of Government Undergraduate Law Review

No abstract provided.

Purges And Closures And Lines, Oh My!--Do Georgia's 2018 Election Procedures Violate International Law?, Holly Katherine Stephens

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

“A Dollar Ain’T Much If You’Ve Got It”: Freeing Modern-Day Poll Taxes From Anderson-Burdick, Lydia Saltzbart

Journal of Law and Policy

How much should it cost to vote in the United States? The answer is clear from the Supreme Court’s landmark opinion in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections—nothing. Yet more than fifty years later, many U.S. voters must jump over financial hurdles to access the franchise. These hurdles have withstood judicial review because the Court has drifted away from Harper and has instead applied the more deferential Anderson-Burdick analysis to modern poll tax claims—requiring voters to demonstrate how severely the cost burdens them. As a result, direct and indirect financial burdens on the vote have proliferated. Millions of voters …

Ranked-Choice Voting As Reprieve From The Court-Ordered Map, Benjamin P. Lempert

Michigan Law Review

Thus far, legal debates about the rise of ranked-choice voting have centered on whether legislatures can lawfully adopt the practice. This Note turns attention to the courts and the question of remedies. It proposes that courts impose ranked-choice voting as a redistricting remedy. Ranked-choice voting allows courts to cure redistricting violations without also requiring that they draw copious numbers of districts, a process the Supreme Court has described as a “political thicket.” By keeping courts away from the fact-specific, often arbitrary judgments involved in redistricting, ranked-choice voting makes for the redistricting remedy that best protects the integrity of the judicial …

New Nation Movement Npc And Others V President Of The Republic Of South Africa And Others 2020 (6) Sa 257 (Cc), Dunia P. Zongwe

SAIPAR Case Review

This case will impact constitutional law, constitutional interpretation, and electoral law in the sense that it will likely remain for a long time the leading case on independent candidates in South Africa. This is an important question that has also been raised elsewhere, like it did recently in Namibia. In both South Africa and Namibia, the question was raised as to the desirability of independent candidates. With the decision in NNM, the Constitutional Court has enabled South Africa to join nations like Namibia in permitting independent candidates.

Resolving The Ambiguity: How Cowen V. Ga. Sec’Y Of State Helps Third Parties Climb Georgia’S Steep Mountain Of Ballot-Access Restrictions, Sean Callihan

Mercer Law Review

Minor political parties are rejoicing and celebrating a significant victory in Cowen v. Ga. Sec’y of State, as a stepping stone in loosening Georgia’s rigorous ballot-access restrictions. Georgia’s rigorous 5% petition requirement is one of the highest barriers in the nation for a political body to overcome, a barrier that has never been breached in Georgia since its adoption in 1943. In Cowen, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia erred by granting summary judgment in favor of Georgia’s Secretary of State without …