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
Tully v. Okeson
Closed
Tully v. Okeson, No. 1:20-cv-01271 (S.D. Ind.) |
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| Case Summary | Twelve people (subsequently reduced to 9 people), including two members of the nonprofit Indiana Vote by Mail organization, sued the Indiana Election Commission and Indiana Secretary of State. The lawsuit seeks to expand no-excuse absentee voting to the November general election. Specifically, the claims are: (1) violation of the 14th Amendment by limiting vote-by-mail to only certain classes of people during a time when the pandemic affects all people (creating an Equal Protection violation), (2) violation of the 26th Amendment by limiting vote-by-mail to only those 65 years old or older (thereby violating the Constitutional prohibition against a state denying or abridging the right to vote of citizens, who are eighteen years of age or older, "on account of age") and (3) an equivalent claim under the Indiana Constitution Art. 1 § 23 (Equal Privileges and Immunities clause) and Art. 2, § 1 (requiring all elections in Indiana be "free and equal."). As support for Covid-19 outweighing potential counterbalancing concerns, the plaintiffs point to a ruling on March 25, 2020 by the Indian Election Commission whereby statutory restrictions on voting-by-mail were suspended for the 2020 primary only. For the primary only, the IEC construed the words "voter with disabilities" in Ind. Code § 3-11-10-24(a)(4) to include any "voter who is unable to complete their ballot because they are temporarily unable to physically touch or be in safe proximity to another person." | |
| Filed | 04/29/2020 | |
| State | Indiana | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | Seventh Circuit | |
| Status | Closed | |
| Last Updated | 09/01/2020 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Vote-by-Mail (Failure to Provide Vote-by-Mail Accommodations for Voters with Disabilities, Failure to Allow No-Excuse Vote by Mail, Failure to Allow Fear of COVID to Qualify as “Excuse”) | |
| Complaint(s) | 04/29/2020: Complaint filed. | |
| 05/04/2020: Complaint filed. | ||
| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 08/21/2020: Order/Ruling, The court DENIED the Plaintiff's motion for a Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction asked the Court to order Indiana to implement "no-excuse absentee voting" that would allow any voter to vote by mail with an absentee ballot in the November 3, 2020 general election. Although the Indiana Election Commission issued an order for the state's June 2020 primary construing the state code broadly such that any voter "unable to physically touch or be in safe proximity to another person" could vote by mail under subsection (4) as a voter with disabilities (IEC Order 2020-37 § 9A), the IEC has not renewed that order for the upcoming general election in November. The court DENIED the motion on the grounds that Plaintiffs are not likely to be able to show that the US Constitution (the 14th Amendment, the 26th Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause) or the State Constituion requires Indiana to give all voters the right to vote by mail in the upcoming general election. The court held that the right to vote does not include the right to vote by mail, and the right to vote here is not substantially burdened by the mail voting restrictions since voters can still vote in person. | |
Tully v. Okeson, No. 20-2605 (7th Cir.) |
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| Case Summary | On appeal was the district court's holding not to extend certain absentee ballot protections to older voters in Indiana during the COVID-19 pandemic. Judge Kanne, writing for the panel, cited the Supreme Court for the proposition that "the fundamental right to vote does not extend to a claimed right to cast an absentee ballot by mail" (McDonald v. Board of Election Commissioners of Chicago). Judge Kanne held that, "unless a state’s actions make it harder to cast a ballot at all, the right to vote is not at stake" and so "Indiana’s absentee-voting regime does not affect Plaintiffs’ right to vote and does not violate the Constitution." | |
| Filed | 08/25/2020 | |
| State | Indiana | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | Seventh Circuit | |
| Status | Closed () | |
| Last Updated | 01/28/2021 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Vote-by-Mail (Failure to Allow No-Excuse Vote by Mail, Failure to Allow Fear of COVID to Qualify as “Excuse”, Failure to Provide Vote-by-Mail Accommodations for Voters with Disabilities) | |
| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 08/25/2020: Appellant Brief | |
| 10/06/2020: Order/Ruling, On appeal was the district court's holding not to extend certain absentee ballot protections to older voters in Indiana during the COVID-19 pandemic. Judge Kanne, writing for the panel, cited the Supreme Court for the proposition that "the fundamental right to vote does not extend to a claimed right to cast an absentee ballot by mail" (McDonald v. Board of Election Commissioners of Chicago). Judge Kanne held that, "unless a state’s actions make it harder to cast a ballot at all, the right to vote is not at stake" and so "Indiana’s absentee-voting regime does not affect Plaintiffs’ right to vote and does not violate the Constitution." | ||
