Law Commons^™

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

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

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.

"How The Sausage Gets Made": Voter Id And Deliberative Democracy, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In 2020, Kentucky became the twentieth state to enact a law that requires voters to show a photo ID at the polls to vote. Yet the law is one of the most mild and reasonable photo ID laws to pass in recent memory. This article tells the inside story of how that law came to be. And it presents the broader story of how the process of crafting legislation, when employing a theory of deliberative democracy, can increase legitimacy and produce better results for the functioning of our elections. The Kentucky story therefore offers important lessons for election law policy …

Bring The Masks And Sanitizer: The Surprising Bipartisan Consensus About Safety Measures For In-Person Voting During The Coronavirus Pandemic, Joshua A. Douglas, Michael A. Zilis

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Requiring masks at the polls might implicate a clash between two vital rights: the constitutional right to vote and the right to protect one’s health. Yet the debate during the 2020 election over requirements to wear a mask at the polls obscured one key fact: a majority of Americans supported a mask mandate for voting. That is the new insight we provide in this Essay: when surveyed, Americans strongly supported safety measures for in-person voting, and that support was high regardless of partisanship. One implication of our results is that by making some widely supported safety modifications, state election officials …

Congress Must Count The Votes: The Danger Of Not Including A State's Electoral College Votes During A Disputed Presidential Election, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Imagine this (nightmare) scenario: In the November 2020 election,

one party wins control of both Houses of Congress, and the presidency comes

down to a disputed election in a state that typically leans toward the other party.

Let's say that Republicans take back a majority of the House of Representatives,

retain control of the Senate, and the presidency will depend on a swing state like

Pennsylvania-a state that voted for the Democratic nominee from 1992

through 2012 but the Republican nominee in 2016. Assume also that Congress,

now fully under Republican control, receives two competing slates of electoral

college votes …

The Loch Ness Monster, Haggis, And A Lower Voting Age: What American Can Learn From Scotland, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article, prepared for an American University Law Review

symposium, explores what the United States can learn from Scotland's experience

in lowering the voting age to sixteen. The minimum voting age in American

elections seems firmly entrenched at eighteen, based in part on the Twenty-Sixth

Amendment, which prohibits states from denying the right to vote to anyone aged

eighteen or older. Yet the conversation about lowering the voting age to sixteen,

at least for local elections, has gained steam in recent years. The debate in

America, however, is nascent compared to the progress in Scotland, which

lowered the voting age …

Precedent, Three-Judge District Courts, And The Law Of Democracy, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

As recent partisan gerrymandering cases have shown, three-judge district courts play a unique and important role in how the federal judiciary considers significant election law disputes. Yet two somewhat quirky procedural questions involving these courts remain unresolved: first, is a Supreme Court ruling to summarily affirm a three-judge district court’s decision precedential on all future courts? That is, why should a one-line order from the Supreme Court, without explanation, formally bind all future courts on the issue, especially when it is unclear what aspect of the lower court’s decision was correct? Second, must a three-judge district court follow, as mandatory …

A Voice In The Wilderness: John Paul Stevens, Election Law, And A Theory Of Impartial Governance, Joshua A. Douglas, Cody S. Barnett

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Justice John Paul Stevens retired from the Supreme Court almost a decade ago and turned ninety-eight years old in April 2018. How should we remember his legacy on the Supreme Court? This Article places his legacy within his election law jurisprudence. Specifically, Justice Stevens provided a consistent theory, which we term “impartial governance,” that has had a lasting impact on the field. This theory undergirds Justice Stevens’s creation of the important Anderson-Burdick-Crawford balancing test that federal courts use to construe the constitutionality of laws that impact the right to vote, such as voter ID laws. It is part of his …

The Right To Vote Under Local Law, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A complete analysis of the right to vote requires at least three levels of inquiry: the U.S. Constitution and federal law, state constitutions and state law, and local laws that confer voting rights for municipal elections. But most voting rights scholarship focuses on only federal or state law and omits any discussion of the third category. This Article—the first to explore in depth the local right to vote—completes the trilogy. Cities and towns across the country are expanding the right to vote in municipal elections to include sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds, noncitizens, nonresident property owners, and others. Berkeley, California, for example, …

Local Democracy On The Ballot, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Essay, focusing particularly on voter-backed local election rules, proceeds in three parts. Part I highlights how local laws play a significant role in dictating voting rights and election rules. Too often election law scholars focus solely on federal or state law. But local laws are also important in defining the right to vote and providing rules for our democracy. New local election law experiments in one place can highlight innovative reforms that other cities and states may eventually adopt. This avenue to election law reform is particularly important given the current political climate.

Part II considers local ballot initiatives …

What The Polls Produce: Why Kentucky Should Retain Nonpartisan Elective Selection Of Its Supreme Court Justices, Nolan M. Jackson

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Keeping Up With New Legal Titles, Tina M. Brooks

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this book review, Tina M. Brooks discusses Voters' Verdicts: Citizens, Campaigns, and Institutions in State Supreme Court Elections by Chris W. Bonneau and Damon M. Cann.

Aggregate Corruption, Michael D. Gilbert, Emily Reeder

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of Lowering The Voting Age, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Essay outlines the various policy arguments in favor of lowering the voting age to sixteen. Part I presents a very brief history of the voting age in U.S. elections. It notes that setting the voting age at eighteen is, in many ways, a historical accident, so lowering the voting age for local elections does not cut against historical norms. Part II explains that there are no constitutional barriers to local jurisdictions lowering the voting age for their own elections. Part III highlights the benefits to democracy and representation that lowering the voting age will engender. Turning eighteen represents a …

Voting Realism, Gilda R. Daniels

Kentucky Law Journal

Since Shelby County v. Holder, the country has grown accustomed to life without the fl! strength of the Voting Rights Act. Efforts to restore Section 4 have been met with calls to ignore race conscious remedies and employ race neutral remedies for modem day voting rights violations. In this new normal, the country should adopt "voting realism" as the new approach to ensuring that law and reality work to address these new millennium methods of voter discrimination.

A Pivotal Moment For Election Law, Joshua A. Douglas

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Economic Precarity, Race, And Voting Structures, Atiba R. Ellis

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Judicial "Enforcement" Of A Grand Election Bargain, Michael J. Pitts

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review Of Direct Democracy: A Reappraisal, Michael E. Solimine

Kentucky Law Journal

In his dissent in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission in 2015, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the Supreme Court had been inconsistent in the rigor it employs when considering constitutional challenges to the products of direct democracy, i.e., referenda and initiatives. Some cases seemed to use stricter scrutiny, and others lesser scrutiny, as compared to challenges to ordinary legislation. Justice Thomas argued that the review of direct democracy should be the same as for ordinary legislation, a proposition with which this Article agrees. This Article challenges the position advanced by Professor Julian Eule over twenty-five years …

Arbitrating Ballot Battles?, Rebecca Green

Kentucky Law Journal

This short article posits that arbitration is an under-explored mechanism for resolving post-election disputes. As Professor Edward Foley documents in Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States, post-election disputes have brought state and federal government to a political precipice numerous times in our history. A comprehensive, transparent, and fair arbitration process could well save us from another.

State Judges And The Right To Vote, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

State courts are paramount in defining the constitutional right to vote. This primacy of state courts exists in part because the right to vote is a state-based right protected under state constitutions. In addition, election administration is largely state-driven, with states regulating most of the rules for casting and counting ballots. State law thus guarantees—and state courts interpret—the voting rights that we cherish so much as a society. State courts that issue rulings broadly defining the constitutional right to vote best protect the most fundamental right in our democracy; state decisions that constrain voting to a narrower scope do harm …

A Pivotal Moment For Election Law, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this brief Foreword to the Kentucky Law Journal Symposium Issue, I chronicle the importance of Justice Scalia's death to election law jurisprudence and highlight the articles in this Issue that will shape the debate in the coming years. Part I looks at how a replacement for Justice Scalia could change, solidify, or extend various aspects of election law doctrine. Part II then summarizes the seven articles in this Symposium Issue, explaining how fresh eyes on the Court could potentially give these proposals a boost. This is a pivotal moment for election law. The Kentucky Law Journal articles in this …

A “Checklist Manifesto” For Election Day: How To Prevent Mistakes At The Polls, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Mistakes happen—especially at the polls on Election Day. To fix this complex problem inherent in election administration, this Article proposes the use of simple checklists. Errors occur in every election, yet many of them are avoidable. Poll workers should have easy-to-use tools to help them on Election Day as they handle throngs of voters. Checklists can assist poll workers in pausing during a complex process to avoid errors. This is a simple idea with a big payoff: fewer lost votes, shorter lines at the polls, a reduction in post-election litigation, and smoother election administration. Further, unlike many other suggested election …

To Protect The Right To Vote, Look To State Courts And State Constitutions, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Issue Brief details the scope of voting rights under state constitutions, an overlooked source of the right to vote. Part I considers both the lack of a federal constitutional right to vote and the explicit right mentioned in virtually all state constitutions. Part II describes recent state-level voter ID cases, providing a summary of how courts facing litigation over voter ID laws have employed their state constitutions. Part III contends that state courts, instead of simply following narrow federal jurisprudence in “lockstep,” should give broader, independent force to their explicit state constitutional provisions conferring the right to vote. Part …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Professors Joshua A. Douglas And Michael E. Solimine, Election Law Scholars, In Support Of Petitioners, Joshua A. Douglas, Michael E. Solimine

Law Faculty Advocacy

Professor Joshua A. Douglas and Professor Michael E. Solimine are election law experts who have a particular interest in the procedural aspects of election litigation. Professors Douglas and Solimine are filing this brief because they have a keen interest in ensuring that the federal courts employ the proper procedure in election law cases, as doing so helps to resolve these disputes in a manner that best comports with the unique aspects of the electoral system. This brief explains why district courts should not use the pleading standard from Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) and Ashcroft …

Who's Afraid Of The Hated Political Gerrymander?, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Kentucky Law Journal

The political gerrymander has few friends among scholars and commentators. Even a majority on the Supreme Court agreed that the practice violates constitutional and democratic norms. Andyet, this is one of the few issues that the US. Supreme Court refuses to regulate. The justices mask their refusal to regulate this area on a professedi nability to divinej uaicially-manageables tandards. In turn, scholars offer new standards for the justices to consider. This is not only a mistake but also misguided. The history of the political question doctrine makes clear that the discovery of manageable standards has never controlled the Court's prior …

Campaign Finance And The Ecology Of Democratic Speech, Michael Kent Curtis, Eugene D. Mazo

Kentucky Law Journal

Biologists have contributed to our understanding of the world's ecosystems, explaining how the natural world is populated by different species, which are able to thrive and blossom because of the existence of other species in the rightproportion. In similar fashion, the authors of this article believe that the political world has an ecosystem. It is an ecosystem where free speech may thrive or wither, and its fate rests on the delicate balance of political influence between citizens and corporations. This balance is disturbed when concentrations of wealth funnel into the democratic process through campaign spending. The Supreme Court, through its …

(Mis)Trusting States To Run Election, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article critically examines recent Supreme Court election law jurisprudence, with a particular eye toward cases involving state election administration—a hotbed of litigation at the Court in recent years. Election administration entails the rules of operating an election and encompasses laws such as voter identification requirements, regulation of primaries, and other "nuts-and-bolts" aspects of the voting process. The Article focuses primarily on the last decade, mainly because that is when states have increasingly enacted stricter election regulations, supposedly in the name of "election integrity," but more likely to gain partisan advantage for the ruling party. In addition, during the first …

The Right To Vote Under State Constitutions, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article provides the first comprehensive look at state constitutional provisions explicitly granting the right to vote. We hear that the right to vote is "fundamental," the "essence of a democratic society," and "preservative of all rights." But courts and scholars are still searching for a solution to the puzzle of how best to protect voting rights, especially because the U.S. Supreme Court has underenforced the right to vote. The answer, however, is right in front of us: state constitutions. Virtually every state constitution includes direct, explicit language granting the right to vote, as contrasted with the U.S. Constitution, which …

Election Law Pleading, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article explores how the Supreme Court’s recent pleading decisions in Twombly and Iqbal have impacted election litigation. It explains how Twombly and Iqbal’s “factual plausibility” standard usually does not help in an election case, because there is often little factual dispute regarding the operation of the election practice. Instead, the real question in a motion to dismiss is whether the plaintiff has stated a viable cause of action against the government defendant who is administering the election. But Twombly and Iqbal’s rule does not assist in answering this question. That is, Twombly and Iqbal are incongruent with …

The Foundational Importance Of Voting: A Response To Professor Flanders, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Voting is the foundational concept for our entire democratic structure. We think of voting as a fundamental-the most fundamental-right in our democracy. When a group of citizens collectively elects its representatives, it affirms the notion that we govern ourselves by free choice. An individual's right to vote ties that person to our social order, even if that person chooses not to exercise that right. Voting represents the beginning; everything else in our democracy follows the right to vote. Participation is more than just a value. It is a foundational virtue of our democracy.

Professor Chad Flanders, in a thought-provoking contribution …