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
Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Boockvar (2)
Closed
Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Boockvar, No. 4:20-cv-02078 (M.D. Pa.) |
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| Case Summary | Plaintiff, the Trump campaign, alleges that defendants, the Pennsylvania Secretary of State and county boards of election, violated the Elections Clause, did not allow for sufficient poll watching of absentee ballots, and "did not undertake any meaningful effort to prevent the casting of illegal or unreliable absentee or mail-in ballots." Plaintiff alleges that the purported lack of uniform statewide standards for curing mistakes violates voters' equal protection and due process rights. As remedy, plaintiffs seek an injunction that prohibits the defendants from certifying the results of the 2020 General Election in Pennsylvania on a Commonwealth-wide basis or one that prohibits Defendants from certifying the results of the General Elections which includes the tabulation of absentee and mail-in ballots for which Plaintiffs’ watchers were allegedly prevented from observing and those which some counties allegedly improperly permitted to be cured. | |
| Filed | 11/09/2020 | |
| State | Pennsylvania | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | Third Circuit | |
| Status | Closed | |
| Last Updated | 03/13/2021 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Vote-by-Mail (Claim that Mail Voting Leads to Fraud and/or Vote Dilution, Poll Observer Access) Authority To Act (Elections Clause) |
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| Complaint(s) | 11/09/2020: Complaint filed. | |
| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 11/21/2020: Order/Ruling, Plaintiffs contended an equal protection violation, in that Pennsylvania’s lack of a uniform prohibition against notice-and-cure is unconstitutional. The court held that plaintiffs lack standing to make this claim but, nevertheless went on to hold that, even if they were to have standing, they failed to even make an equal protection claim. The court dismissed the case, characterizing it as "strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence." | |
Donald J. Trump for Pres., Inc. v. Boockvar, No. 20-3371 (3rd Cir.) |
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| Case Summary | Whether the District Court abused its discretion in not letting the Campaign amend its complaint a second time. | |
| Filed | 11/23/2020 | |
| State | Pennsylvania | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | Third Circuit | |
| Status | Closed | |
| Last Updated | 03/09/2021 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Vote-by-Mail (Claim that Mail Voting Leads to Fraud and/or Vote Dilution, Poll Observer Access) Authority To Act (Elections Clause) |
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| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 11/23/2020: Appellant Brief | |
| 11/27/2020: Order/Ruling, The Third Circuit denied the requested injunction and affirmed the district court's denial of leave to amend. Judge Bibas, writing for the panel, held that appellants, the Trump Campaign, tried to "repackage" state-law claims about ballot corrections and poll observer access as unconstitutional discrimination. Yet the Campaign never alleged that anyone treated the Trump campaign or Trump votes worse than it treated the Biden campaign or Biden votes. An injunction to undo Pennsylvania's certification was not warranted, since "the number of ballots it specifically challenges is far smaller than the roughly 81,000-vote margin of victory" and "it never claims fraud or that any votes were cast by illegal voters." The circuit held that the district court had not abused its discretion in denying leave to amend the complaint a second time, since the Campaign's delay was undue and an amendment would have been futile. | ||
