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
Lean on McLean v. Showalter
Closed
Lean on McLean v. Showalter, No. CL20001959-00 (Va. Cir. Ct., Richmond City) |
||
| Case Summary | Tracy McLean, a candidate for Mayor of the City of Richmond, Virginia, sought to enjoin enforcement of certain procedures for appearing on the ballot in the November 2020 Richmond Mayoral Election on the grounds that such restrictions violated her First Amendment rights in light of the challenges of collecting signatures during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Richmond City Charter required that aspiring mayoral candidates submit a petition to the General Registrar with a minimum of 500 signatures of qualified voters of the city, including at least 50 qualified voters from each of the nine election districts, and the Virginia Code provided that such petition must be filed no later than June 9, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. The court granted a preliminary injunction and ordered that the signature requirement be reduced to 150 signatures including at least 10 qualified voters from each of the nine election districts and the deadline to file the related petition be extended to June 23, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. | |
| Filed | 05/01/2020 | |
| State | Virginia | |
| Type of Court | State | |
| Status | Closed | |
| Last Updated | 03/14/2021 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Candidate Signature Requirement (Threshold Number, Deadline/Time to Collect) | |
| Complaint(s) | 05/01/2020: Complaint filed. | |
| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 05/18/2020: Order/Ruling, The court granted a preliminary injunction in line with a consent order presented to the court by the plaintiffs and defendants, finding that the plaintiffs had demonstrated a substantial likelihood of establishing that the petition signature requirements for attaining ballot access in the Richmond mayoral election constituted an impermissible burden on plaintiffs’ voting, associational and expressive rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Specifically, the court ordered that the signature requirement for submitting a petition for appearing on the ballot in the November 2020 Richmond Mayoral Election be reduced to 150 signatures including at least 10 qualified voters from each of the nine election districts and the deadline to file the related petition be extended to June 23, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. The court found defendants legally blameless for the constitutionally deficient restrictions giving rise to the order and therefore the court denied plaintiffs’ prevailing party attorney’s fees and all parties bore their own costs, including attorney’s fees. | |
