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
Bognet v. Boockvar
Active
Bognet v. Boockvar, No. 3:20-cv-00215 (W.D. Pa.) |
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| Case Summary | Plaintiffs, residents of Pennsylvania and some candidates for office there, brought suit against the Pennsylvania Secretary of State and every Pennsylvania county Board of Elections alleging violations of the Elections Clause and Presidential Electors Clause as well as the Equal Protection Clause for counting ballots received after election day but postmarked by election day in accordance with a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief in the form of preventing ballots received after the original Election Day receipt deadline set by statute from being counted and a declaration that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision in Pennsylvania Democratic Party v. Boockvar was contrary to the United States Constitution. | |
| Filed | 10/22/2020 | |
| State | Pennsylvania | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | Third Circuit | |
| Status | Active | |
| Last Updated | 05/13/2021 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Vote-by-Mail (Mail Voting Deadlines (for Applying, Receiving, Postmark)) Authority To Act (Elections Clause) |
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| Complaint(s) | 10/22/2020: Complaint filed. | |
| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 10/28/2020: Order/Ruling, The district court denied the motion for injunction holding that the candidate plaintiff lacked standing because his claims were too speculative and not redressable, and the voter plaintiffs lacked standing on their Equal Protection voter dilution claim because they alleged only a generalized grievance. And although the voter plaintiffs had standing on their Equal Protection arbitrary-and-disparate treatment claim, and were likely to succeed on the merits (that the ballot deadline extension violates Equal Protection), the Purcell principle mandates that no injunction be awarded since there is less than two weeks before the election, and injunctive relief would result in significant voter confusion. | |
Bognet v. Boockvar, No. 20-3214 (3rd Cir.) |
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| Case Summary | ||
| Filed | 10/29/2020 | |
| State | Pennsylvania | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | Third Circuit | |
| Status | Active | |
| Last Updated | 12/07/2020 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Vote-by-Mail (Mail Voting Deadlines (for Applying, Receiving, Postmark)) Authority To Act (Elections Clause) |
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| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 11/13/2020: Order/Ruling, In a lawsuit filed before the election but relevant to much of the post-election litigation, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the district court's rejection of a constitutional challenge to Pennsylvania's post-Election Day deadline on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The court held “when voters cast their ballots under a state’s facially lawful election rule and in accordance with instructions from the state’s election officials, private citizens lack Article III standing to enjoin the counting of those ballots on the grounds that the source of the rule was the wrong state organ or that doing so dilutes their votes or constitutes differential treatment of voters in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Further, and independent of our holding on standing, we hold that the District Court did not err in denying Plaintiffs’ motion for injunctive relief out of concern for the settled expectations of voters and election officials. We will affirm the District Court’s denial of Plaintiffs’ emergency motion for a TRO or preliminary injunction.” The Court did not decide “whether the Deadline Extension or the Presumption of Timeliness are proper exercises of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s lawmaking authority, delegated by the U.S. Constitution, to regulate federal elections. Nor [did it] evaluate the policy wisdom of those two features of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling.” | |
Bognet v. Boockvar, No. 20-3214 |
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| Case Summary | The appellants petition for cert, seeking review of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ballot deadline extension. | |
| Filed | 11/20/2020 | |
| State | Michigan | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | US Supreme Court | |
| Status | Active | |
| Last Updated | 05/04/2021 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Vote-by-Mail (Mail Voting Deadlines (for Applying, Receiving, Postmark)) Authority To Act (Elections Clause) |
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| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 11/20/2020: Appellant Brief | |
| 04/19/2021: Other | ||
