COVID-Related Election Litigation Tracker

Case Details

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

 

Republican National Committee v. Miller

Closed. Settled and/or Withdrawn

Republican National Committee v. Miller, No. 06571 EQCV095986 (Iowa Dist. Ct., Linn Cnty.)

  Case Summary Plaintiffs brought suit requesting an injunction on the Auditor of Linn County's action, whereby absentee ballots were prepopulated before being mailed to every active registered voter, even though the Sec. of State's emergency election directive asked for blank ballots to be distributed. Plaintiffs claim this can cause voter fraud as there is no assurance that the forms were actually mailed by the voter listed on the ballot.
Filed 08/10/2020
State Iowa
Type of Court State
Status Closed. Settled and/or Withdrawn
Last Updated 03/13/2021
Issue Tag(s) Vote-by-Mail (Signature Verification Standards, Claim that Mail Voting Leads to Fraud and/or Vote Dilution, Other Vote-by-Mail Issue)
Pre-population of Absentee Ballots with voter's name, DOB, pin, and other info.
Complaint(s) 08/10/2020: Complaint filed.
Dispositive Ruling(s) 08/27/2020: Order/Ruling, The court granted Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction, finding that Iowa law most likely does not allow an auditor to almost entirely fill out an absentee ballot application especially given that the Iowa Secretary of State has ordered county auditors to send blank application forms.
09/16/2020: Order/Ruling

Republican National Committee v. Miller, Nos. 20-1091, 20-1140 (Iowa Sup. Ct.)

  Case Summary The county auditors filed interlocutory appeals after injunctions were granted by the district court.
Filed 09/16/2020
State Iowa
Type of Court State
Status Closed
Last Updated 03/13/2021
Issue Tag(s) Vote-by-Mail (Signature Verification Standards, Claim that Mail Voting Leads to Fraud and/or Vote Dilution, Other Vote-by-Mail Issue)
Pre-population of Absentee Ballots with voter's name, DOB, pin, and other info.
Dispositive Ruling(s) 09/16/2020: Other, Procedendo for the lower court to rule. Supreme Court issued writ for the lower court to make a decision.
Creative Commons License  Covid-Related Election Litigation Tracker by the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.