This database consolidates and tracks litigation concerning the effect of the pandemic on election law. The purpose of this tool is to provide an interactive list of relevant cases that can be searched by issue, court, status, and jurisdiction.
Case Details
Hawkins v. DeWine
Closed
Hawkins v. DeWine, No. 2:20-cv-02781 (S.D. Ohio), 2020 WL 3448228 |
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| Case Summary | Plaintiffs seek to modify or enjoin both the State's ballot access provisions for independent political candidates and the State's requirements for formation of a minor political party. Specifically, they challenge the in-person nominating petition signing requirements and nominating petition filing requirements as unconstitutional as applied due to the emergency orders adopted by the State in response to COVID-19."; New dispositive ruling summary: "Court granted State's motion to dismiss. Despite procedurally finding sufficient standing for the case, the Court found no significant burden on plaintiff's First Amendment rights, since the Health Director's orders excluded First Amendment speech from regulation and declared it to be an essential activity exempt from the mandate. The Court further dismissed Plaintiff's Equal Protection and Due Process claims, as they had alleged no discrete violations of those rights. | |
| Filed | 05/29/2020 | |
| State | Ohio | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | Sixth Circuit | |
| Status | Closed () | |
| Last Updated | 09/05/2020 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Candidate Signature Requirement (Threshold Number, Deadline/Time to Collect) Political Party Signature Requirements |
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| Complaint(s) | 05/29/2020: Complaint filed. | |
| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 06/24/2020: Order/Ruling, Motion to dismiss granted and PI denied based on the precedent in Thompson v. DeWine. The court found plaintiffs have standing because allegations sufficiently support a fairly traceable connection between the alleged injury and defendants' conduct at the pleading stage. The Court found the challenged election regulations constitutional because they serve compelling state interests, are nondiscriminatory and do not impose a significant burden on speech. In sum, the court finds that the First Amendment exemptions found in the State's stay-at-home and other COVID-19 orders broadly protect plaintiffs' petition-gathering activity and are not unconstitutionally vague. The court finally found that the equal protection and due process claim fails because the State neither changed the statutory requirements for petitions, nor did it its COVID-19 orders prohibit plaintiffs' signature-gathering activities. | |
Hawkins v. DeWine, No. 20-3717 (6th Cir.) |
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| Case Summary | Plaintiffs seek to modify or enjoin both the State's ballot access provisions for independent political candidates and the State's requirements for formation of a minor political party. Specifically, they challenge the in-person nominating petition signing requirements and nominating petition filing requirements as unconstitutional as applied due to the emergency orders adopted by the State in response to COVID-19."; New dispositive ruling summary: "Court granted State's motion to dismiss. Despite finding sufficient standing for the case, the Court found no significant burden on plaintiff's First Amendment rights, since the Health Director's orders excluded First Amendment speech from regulation and declared it to be an essential activity exempt from the mandate. The Court further dismissed Plaintiff's Equal Protection and Due Process claims, as they had alleged no discrete violations of those rights. After the district court granted a motion to dismiss and denied a preliminary injunction, Plaintiffs appealed. | |
| Filed | 07/06/2020 | |
| State | Ohio | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | Sixth Circuit | |
| Status | Closed | |
| Last Updated | 08/03/2021 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Candidate Signature Requirement (Threshold Number, Deadline/Time to Collect) | |
| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 07/20/2020: Appellant Brief | |
| 08/03/2020: Order/Ruling, The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling that the State’s ballot-access requirements, as applied, have not become unconstitutionally burdensome in light of the pandemic related orders restricting in-person gatherings. The state’s ballot-access laws require candidates and minor political parties hoping to be listed on November’s ballot to show that they have a modicum of community support by collecting petition signatures from Ohio voters. The law requires that the signatures be collected in person, a task which has become more difficult in the era of social distancing. But the court held that binding precedent compels it to conclude that the rules are not unconstitutionally burdensome, and affirmed the district court holding. | ||
