Election Law: Volume 1

THIS CASEBOOK contains a selection of U. S. Court of Appeals decisions that analyze and discuss issues stemming from election law. Volume 1 of the casebook covers the District of Columbia Circuit and the First through the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Any restrictions on access to the ballot necessarily "implicate substantial voting, associational[,] and expressive rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments." McLaughlin v. N.C. Bd. of Elections, 65 F.3d 1215, 1221 (4th Cir. 1995). However, states have the power to regulate the time, place, and manner of their own elections, see U.S. Const. art. 1, § 4, cl. 1, to ensure that "some sort of order, rather than chaos, ... accompan[ies] the democratic processes," Burdick, 504 U.S. at 433, 112 S.Ct. 2059 (quoting Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 730, 94 S.Ct. 1274, 39 L.Ed.2d 714 (1974)). Accordingly, in evaluating a challenge to a ballot-access law, courts

must weigh the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments that the plaintiff seeks to vindicate against the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule, taking into consideration the extent to which those interests make it necessary to burden the plaintiff's rights.

Id. at 434, 112 S.Ct. 2059 (citation omitted).

When election laws "impose a severe burden on ballot access," those laws "are subject to strict scrutiny," and will be upheld only if the laws are "narrowly drawn" to support a compelling state interest. Pisano v. Strach, 743 F.3d 927, 933 (4th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). Election laws that impose only a "modest" burden will be upheld if the state can "articulate" its "important regulatory interests." Libertarian Party of Va. v. Alcorn, 826 F.3d 708, 716, 719 (4th Cir. 2016) (citations omitted). A "state's important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions." Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 788, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983).

Buscemi v. Bell, 964 F. 3d 252 (4th Cir. 2020)