3/8/2024

The bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court came to a unanimous 9-0 ruling in one of the most politically polarized cases in the Court’s history. But when you peel back the curtain, a more complex rift between the justices comes into view.

Super Tuesday was the first major test for a slew of voting and elections bills, and the results were mixed. Meanwhile, Illinois faces a Republican lawsuit alleging voter roll mismanagement and a Nevada judge decided the fate of multiple ballot initiatives.

Trumpdates Are Back in the Supreme Court!

In a landmark but unsurprising ruling, the Supreme Court reversed a Colorado Supreme Court decision removing former President Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

The Court, in a 9-0 ruling, held that “the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates” and that while state officials may disqualify candidates for state office under the 14th Amendment, they cannot do so for federal candidates, which include the presidency.

Though the Court was unanimous in its decision that Trump should remain on the ballot, the Court was divided on who has the power to enforce Section 3. In a concurrence, the Court’s three liberal justices blasted the conservative majority for shutting “the door on other potential means of federal enforcement” by announcing that “a disqualification for insurrection can occur only when Congress enacts a particular kind of legislation pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Monday was expected to be a major day for Trump in the courts, but for a different reason. The former president's federal election subversion case had been scheduled for months to go to trial at the start of the week, but a series of conspicuous delays and flailing appeals has created uncertainty on its timing. Some experts now think the case may not even go to trial before Election Day — especially since the Court decided to consider Trump’s claim of presidential immunity and scheduled oral argument for April 25, the last day for the Court to hear arguments this term.  

The Court’s timing in the immunity question served as a stark difference to its timing for the 14th Amendment challenge. The Supreme Court granted Trump’s petition in the 14th Amendment case just two days later, as opposed to three weeks, and set oral argument for just over a month later, compared to nearly two months for the question of immunity.

Read more about why Trump hasn’t yet gone to trial for his efforts to overturn the election, as well as Marc’s thoughts on the justices bending toward Trump.

Super Tuesday Sees Mixed Results for New Voting and Election Changes

A flurry of recently enacted voting and election laws were put to the test during Super Tuesday’s elections, and the results were a bit of a mixed bag.

In Alabama, elections were held under the state’s recently enacted congressional map for the first time, and while the new, fair districts are a big win for voters, the new boundaries didn’t exactly go off without a hitch.

Postcards inaccurately telling voters that they lived in the 7th Congressional District, as opposed to the new majority-Black 2nd Congressional district, were sent to 6,593 residents. The error was attributed to a “software glitch” that occurred when changes were made to account for the newly drawn districts.

In Minnesota, a bill enacted last June that immediately restored voting rights to over 50,000 individuals with previous felony convictions was in full effect in this week’s election. Antonio Williams, who advocated for the legislation and was released from prison in 2020, took advantage of the new law and cast his ballot on Tuesday.

Previously, the state only permitted voting rights restoration after the completion of an entire sentence. Last year’s law changed that to allow individuals on parole, probation or community release to vote.

While a newly imposed voter ID law needlessly made the voting process more difficult for those in North Carolina, a robust education effort on the changes allowed for things to mostly go off without a hitch. “Only about three out of every 10,000 voters had to vote a provisional ballot due to the photo ID requirement,” according to North Carolina State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell.

That’s a much different story than what happened during smaller, municipal elections late last year. A report from the group Democracy NC found that confusion over the law led to the inaccurate rejection of some ballots, and that some voters who should have received an ID exception form were not provided one.

Right-Wing Groups Allege Illinois Officials Fail to Adequately Manage Voting Rolls

On Wednesday, the right-wing group Judicial Watch, an individual voter and two other conservative nonprofit groups filed a lawsuit alleging that Illinois election officials are failing to properly remove ineligible individuals from the state’s voter rolls.

The lawsuit claims that 23 Illinois counties removed just 100 voters over a two-year period, despite the fact that more than 980,000 registrations had been reported as of November 2022. Additionally, certain counties removed zero voters from the rolls between 2020 and 2022, according to the complaint. The removals amount to “absurdly small numbers,” Judicial Watch argues.

The complaint further alleges that “[t]here is no possible way these counties can be conducting a general program that makes a reasonable effort to cancel the registrations of voters who have become ineligible because of a change of residence while removing so few registrations under” the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

The NVRA requires states to cancel the registrations of voters who have passed away or changed their residence.

The lawsuit makes a handful of other claims, including that:

• Numerous Illinois counties failed to report data regarding removals and inactive voter registrations to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission,

  
  

• State election officials have failed to provide request records and data pertaining to the state’s maintenance practices and

  
  

• “Illinois election officials are manifestly failing to remove ineligible residents from the voter rolls.”

Though voter list maintenance can be an important tool, the process can be flawed, and often results in lawful voters being improperly purged from voter lists.

Just last week, a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit from a right-wing “election integrity group,” the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), seeking to gain access to Michigan’s voter roll maintenance records for the purposes of purging allegedly ineligible voters from the state’s list of registrants.

Democrats in Virginia and New Mexico Work to Ban Firearms Near Election Locations

Democrats took action this week to protect voters, passing and signing legislation that bans firearms near polling places and other election-related locations.

On Monday, New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham (D) signed a bill that prohibits the carrying of any gun — loaded or unloaded — 100 feet from a polling place or 50 feet from a drop box. Exceptions are made for police officers, concealed carry license holders, people conducting non-election business near a polling place or drop box and people sitting in their car near a polling place.

Sen. Peter Wirth (D), the bill's lead sponsor, said that “as elections have become known targets for threats and intimidation, it’s important we are enacting this legislation ahead of the upcoming election cycle.”

Just a day later, the Virginia Legislature passed a similar bill that would ban individuals from knowingly possessing a firearm within 100 feet of entrances to  polling places, buildings used by electoral boards to ascertain election results and buildings used to conduct election recounts.

The law would extend the firearm ban to additional locations, including voter registration sites, voter satellite offices, absentee voter precincts and election certification meeting sites. Like New Mexico, few exceptions would be made, including for law-enforcement officers, people with private property within the 100-foot boundary and certain armed security officers.

Virginia’s bill awaits the signature of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who is set to decide the fate of a flurry of other gun safety bills.

In the past four years, there’s been a steep rise in threats of violence at polling sites and drop boxes, thanks to the spike in conspiracy theories and disinformation stemming from the 2020 presidential election. Just 12 states and Washington D.C. currently have laws expressly banning the possession of a firearm near polling places.

OPINION: Democratic Governors’ Judicial Appointments Have Never Mattered More

It’s no surprise that Americans are more aware now than ever of the impact the courts have on their lives when it comes to freedom, democracy and the biggest issues we care about. By Meghan Meehan-Draper, the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association. Read more.  ➡️

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We are also reading a new report by the Brennan Center highlighting how court attacks on the Voting Rights Act have led to increasing racial disparities in voter turnout.

A new episode of our podcast Defending Democracy dropped this morning! In today’s episode, Marc and Paige discuss recent lawsuits in Arizona involving Trump aide Stephen Miller, the state’s Election Procedures Manual and more. Listen on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch it on YouTube.