Justia U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Election Law
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In this case, a group of individual donors and two independent-expenditure organizations challenged certain campaign finance regulations enacted in Alaska after voters passed Ballot Measure 2, aimed at shedding light on "dark money" in the state's elections. The plaintiffs argued that these regulations violated their First Amendment rights. The two regulations at issue were: (1) a requirement for individual donors to report contributions exceeding an annual aggregate of $2,000 to an entity making expenditures for a candidate in prior or current election cycles, and (2) a requirement for political advertisements to disclose certain identifying information about donors in any communications intended to influence the election of a candidate.Applying exacting scrutiny, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that both regulations were substantially related and narrowly tailored to the government's interest in providing the electorate with accurate, real-time information. This interest was deemed sufficiently important in the campaign finance context. The court dismissed the plaintiffs' arguments that the reporting requirement was duplicative of existing criminal laws and overly burdensome. It also rejected their contention that the disclaimer requirement for political advertisements was unconstitutionally discriminatory against out-of-state speakers.The court concluded that the plaintiffs had not shown that the district court abused its discretion in denying their motion for a preliminary injunction. Therefore, the district court's denial of the preliminary injunction was affirmed. The court, however, did not consider the remaining factors for a preliminary injunction as they were unnecessary for this holding. View "SMITH V. HELZER" on Justia Law

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In this case, two state senators from Oregon, Dennis Linthicum and Brian Boquist, challenged a recent amendment to the Oregon Constitution that disqualifies any state senator or representative from the next election if they have accrued ten or more unexcused absences from legislative floor sessions. In 2023, the senators engaged in a legislative walkout spanning several weeks, each accumulating more than ten unexcused absences. As a result, Oregon's Secretary of State disqualified them from appearing on the ballot for the 2024 election. The senators sought a preliminary injunction, arguing that their walkout was a form of protest protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction. The court held that the senators' walkout was not protected by the First Amendment, as it was not a form of expression, but an exercise of legislative power. The court relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Nevada Commission on Ethics v. Carrigan, which held that the First Amendment does not protect the exercise of official legislative power, even if it could be characterized as expressive. The court also noted that the power of a legislator to be absent from legislative sessions, and thereby frustrate legislative action, is not personal to the legislator but belongs to the people. Therefore, the senators could not claim a personal First Amendment right to walk out. The court concluded that the senators were unlikely to prevail on the merits of their First Amendment retaliation claim and affirmed the denial of their request for a preliminary injunction. View "Linthicum v. Wagner" on Justia Law

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Kari Lake and Mark Finchem (“Plaintiffs”), the Republican nominees for Governor and Secretary of State of Arizona, filed this action before the 2022 general election, contending that Arizona’s use of electronic tabulation systems violated the federal Constitution. The district court dismissed their operative first amended complaint for lack of Article III standing. Lake v. Hobbs. Plaintiffs’ candidacies failed at the polls, and their various attempts to overturn the election outcome in state court have to date been unavailing. On appeal, they no longer seek any relief concerning the 2022 election but instead seek to bar use of electronic tabulation systems in future Arizona elections.   The Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court that Plaintiffs’ “speculative allegations that voting machines may be hackable are insufficient to establish an injury in fact under Article III. The court explained that even assuming Plaintiffs could continue to claim standing as prospective voters in future elections, they had not alleged a particularized injury and therefore failed to establish the kind of injury Article III requires. None of Plaintiffs’ allegations supported a plausible inference that their individual votes in future elections will be adversely affected by the use of electronic tabulation, particularly given the robust safeguards in Arizona law, the use of paper ballots, and the post-tabulation retention of those ballots. The panel concluded that speculative allegations that voting machines may be hackable were insufficient to establish an injury, in fact, under Article III. View "KARI LAKE, ET AL V. ADRIAN FONTES, ET AL" on Justia Law

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Plaintiffs, three Arizona voters and three organizations, including the Democratic National Committee, brought this action against the Arizona Secretary of State alleging that the Ballot Order Statute violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments because it gives candidates the benefit of appearing first on the ballot, not on the basis of some politically neutral ordering (such as alphabetically or by lot), but on the basis of political affiliation.The district court dismissed the complaint on the basis that plaintiffs lack standing and that the complaint presented a nonjusticiable political question. The circuit court panel held that the district court erred in dismissing the suit on these grounds. The panel held that: (1) the DNC satisfied the injury in fact requirement on the basis of its competitive standing; (2) the challenged law was traceable to the Secretary; and (3) having shown that an injunction against the Secretary would significantly increase the likelihood of relief, plaintiffs met their burden as to redressability. The court reasoned that adjudicating a challenge to a ballot order statute did not present the sort of intractable issues that arise in partisan gerrymandering cases. Further, the court rejected the Secretary’s argument that the district court’s dismissal could be affirmed on the alternative ground that she was not the proper defendant under Article III or the Eleventh Amendment. Finally, the panel held that plaintiffs had stated a claim sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss. View "BRIAN MECINAS V. KATIE HOBBS" on Justia Law

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Arizona voters may vote by mail during the last four weeks of an election. The voter must sign an affidavit that is printed on a specially provided, postage-paid envelope. A ballot with a missing signature cannot be counted. On September 10, 2020, weeks before the upcoming presidential election, the district court enjoined the enforcement of Ariz. Stat. 16-548(A), which requires early voters to have signed their ballots by 7:00 PM on Election Day in order to have their votes counted. The Ninth Circuit granted emergency motions and stayed the injunction, pending appeal.In 2021, the Ninth Circuit entered a permanent stay. The state has shown a likelihood of success on the merits. Arizona's signature deadline imposes, at most, a "minimal" burden on those who seek to exercise their right to vote. The state made a strong showing that its deadline reasonably advances important regulatory interests in reducing the burden on poll workers, especially during the days immediately following an election. The public interest is served by preserving Arizona's existing election laws. Although Arizona’s law implicated national interests, at least when the election included presidential candidates, that factor alone did not mean that strict scrutiny must apply. The court noted that the Arizona legislature “laudably amended its election code in 2019 to allow voters an extended period to correct mismatched signatures." Arizona’s decision not to grant the same extension to voters who neglect to sign the affidavit passed constitutional muster. View "Arizona Democratic Party v. Hobbs" on Justia Law

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The previous opinion is withdrawn and replaced by the following opinion concurrently filed with this order. On remand from the Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit (1) affirmed the district court's bench trial judgment upholding Alaska's political party-to-party candidate limit; (2) reversed the district court's judgment as to the individual-to-candidate limit, the individual-to-group limit, and the nonresident aggregate limit; and (3) remanded.In this case, at issue are Alaska's limits on contributions made by individuals to candidates, individuals to election-related groups, and political parties to candidates, and also its limit on the total funds a candidate may receive from out-of-state residents. On remand, the court's resolution of the challenges to the political party-to-candidate and nonresident limits remains the same, affirming the district court's decision upholding the former but reversing the decision upholding the latter. However, the panel reversed the district court's decision upholding the individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group limits, applying the five-factor Randall test and concluding that Alaska failed to meet its burden of showing that its individual contribution limit was closely drawn to meet its objectives. The panel explained that, on top of its danger signs, the limit significantly restricts the amount of funds available to challengers to run competitively against incumbents, and the already-low limit is not indexed for inflation. Furthermore, Alaska has not established a special justification for such a low limit. The panel also concluded that, similarly, Alaska has not met its burden of showing that the $500 individual-to-group limit is closely drawn to restrict contributors from circumventing the individual-to-candidate limit. View "Thompson v. Hebdon" on Justia Law

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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal, based on failure to state a claim, of plaintiff's action seeking to remedy defendants' failure to count his vote in the 2016 November General Election. At issue is whether Arizona residents who registered to vote on October 11, 2016, registered to vote in time to be eligible to vote in the 2016 November General Election. The Arizona law in effect in 2016 set the voter registration deadline for the 2016 November Election on Monday, October 10, 2016. However, because Monday, October 10, 2016 was also Columbus Day, a state and federal holiday, certain methods of voter registration were not available on that day. In this case, plaintiff and roughly 2,000 others registered to vote on Tuesday, October 11, 2016.The panel held that, under Arizona law in effect in 2016, an Arizona resident who registered to vote on October 11, 2016 did not register in time to be eligible to vote in the 2016 November Election. The panel also held that the October 10, 2016 voter registration deadline did not violate the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). Accordingly, the panel need not reach the remaining two questions regarding the enforceability of the NVRA under section 1983 and the factual predicate necessary to state a cognizable money damages claim for deprivation of an individual's right to vote. Finally, the panel noted that this rigid result is not likely to reoccur under Ariz. Rev. Stat. 16-120, as amended. View "Isabel v. Reagan" on Justia Law

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In late August 2020, Yazzie initiated an action challenging Arizona's Receipt Deadline pursuant to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, and the Arizona Constitution's election clause. The complaint alleges that Navajo Nation reservation residents face myriad challenges to voting by mail where many on-reservation members do not have home mail service. Rather, to receive or send mail, they must travel to a post office. Furthermore, socioeconomic factors, educational disadvantages, and language barriers make both the travel to the post office—which requires access to a car—and the completion of mail ballots difficult. Yazzie also claims that these mail ballots take disproportionately longer to reach the county recorder's office because of the slower mail service on the reservation. In late September 2020, the district court denied Yazzie's motion for preliminary injunction based on its finding that Yazzie did not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits or raise serious questions going to the merits of Yazzie's VRA claim.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of Yazzie's request for a preliminary injunction. The panel did not address the district court's analysis of the VRA claim because it concluded that Yazzie and the other plaintiffs lack standing. The panel stated that not only does Yazzie fail to make a clear showing of a concrete and particularized injury, noticeably absent in the record is any particularized allegation with respect to any of the six individual plaintiffs. The panel also stated that, importantly, this case is not a putative class action filed on behalf of the Navajo Nation members who reside on the reservation. In this case, Yazzie failed to establish injury-in-fact for at least one of the individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The panel concluded that also missing is a clear showing that the alleged injury is redressable by a favorable decision by this court. View "Yazzie v. Hobbs" on Justia Law

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The Ninth Circuit granted a prospective stay of the district court's preliminary injunction enjoining the Secretary's enforcement of the October 5, 2020 deadline prescribed in Ariz. Rev. Stat. 16-120(A), where the district court held that it was unconstitutional as applied during the COVID-19 pandemic. The injunction extended the registration deadline by 18 days to October 23, 2020, and ordered that anyone registering by that date be allowed to vote in the November 3 election.The panel applied the Nken factors to determine whether to grant a stay pending appeal, holding that there is a sufficiently high likelihood of success on appeal where there has been no facial challenge to the statutory registration deadline; the statutory deadline does not impose a "severe burden" on plaintiffs' asserted rights and does not trigger strict scrutiny; the administrative burdens on the state imposed by an October 23 registration deadline are significant; and, even if the burden on voter registration were greater and the burden on the government less, plaintiffs' extremely late filing relative to the deadline is a factor supporting the government's likelihood of success on the merits. Finally, the remaining factors governing issuance of a stay also weigh in the Secretary's favor.The panel granted the Secretary's specific request for a prospective stay, with a two-day grace period. In this case, the Secretary maintains that a retroactive stay would be unfair and might cause irreparable harm to Arizona's voters and damage the public interest. Furthermore, a retroactive stay would replicate some of the injuries that the injunction itself produced, and a retrospective stay would be problematic given that early voting has begun; the Supreme Court has recently employed the remedy of a prospective stay in similar election law cases; and the Supreme Court's election law jurisprudence counsels for deference to politically accountable state officials charged with the responsibility for conducting elections. View "Mi Familia Vota v. Hobbs" on Justia Law

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The Ninth Circuit granted emergency motions for a stay pending appeal of the district court's injunction enjoining Ariz. Rev. Stat. 16-548(A), which requires early voters to have signed their ballots by 7:00 PM on Election Day in order to have their votes counted. On September 10, 2020, less than two months before the upcoming presidential election, the district court enjoined the law and ordered Arizona to create and to institute a new procedure that would grant voters who failed to sign their ballots up to five days after voting has ended to correct the error.The panel held that the Nken factors weigh in favor of a stay. In this case, the State has shown that it is likely to succeed on the merits where Arizona's Election Day signature deadline imposes, at most, a "minimal" burden on those who seek to exercise their right to vote. Under the Anderson-Burdick framework for evaluating ballot-access laws, the panel concluded that the State has made a strong showing that its ballot-signature deadline reasonably advances important regulatory interests. Even though plaintiffs contend that the changes to Arizona's law will likely affect only a small number of voters and create a relatively low administrative burden on the State, the panel explained that the State's probability of success on the merits is high. Furthermore, the public interest is well served by preserving Arizona's existing election laws and plaintiffs stand to face only a minimal burden. View "Arizona Democratic Party v. Hobbs" on Justia Law