Elections are important, but so are many things in life. We have always held candidates to the same standards as any other litigant. See, e.g., Davis v. Federal Election Comm’n, 554 U.S. 724, 733–734 (2008) (applying ordinary standing analysis to candidate challenging financial disclosure requirements); Wittman v. Personhuballah, 578 U.S. 539, 545 (2016) (applying ordinary standing analysis to legislators running for reelection who challenged redistricting plan); Carney, 592 U.S., at 59–60 (requiring a would-be candidate to show concrete intention to seek office to challenge partisan-balance rule). And we have repeatedly rejected requests to create special standing rules for particular litigants. See, e.g., Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 821, 830 (1997) (legislator standing); Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 563 U.S. 125, 134 (2011) (taxpayer standing); Lujan, 504 U.S., at 566–567 (animal-enthusiast standing); FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S. 367, 392–393 (2024) (doctor standing). I see no reason to afford candidates favored status. Nor do the practical realities of running for office warrant special treatment for candidates....
Barrett and Kagan agree that Congressman Bost has standing, but only because he has a "pocketbook injury." The voting law he challenged — which required counting mail-in votes received up to 2 weeks after election day — cost him money.
The Chief Justice, writing the majority opinion, doesn't concede that this is a "bespoke standing rule":
Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns. Their interest extends to the integrity of the election—and the democratic process by which they earn or lose the support of the people they seek to represent.
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54 comments:
I don't agree with Roberts that candidates have a greater interest in democracy than any other citizen. Of course, every citizen does have an interest and standing should be granted on that ground.
"Elections are important, but so are many things in life."
But apparently those important things include only "pocketbook issues".
...now I'm dreaming of Birkins...
tim maguire at least alludes to an answer to the question I had which was is this really a 'bespoke rule'? Who would have had standing to challenge it before? Nobody?
If candidates don't have standing to challenge elections or electoral rules, and voters don't either, who does?
Now that raises an interesting question. Most of the 2020 election lawsuits alleging election fraud were dismissed because the plaintiffs lacked standing--and so the merits of the challenge were never heard. If no one has standing--which seems to be pretty much the case based on the results of the various challenges, then how will a fraud issue ever be heard? Someone has to be allowed to have standing for the challenge, so why not the losing candidate?
At last the standing-laches-mootness trap is being dismantled. CC, JSM
Why do we even bother electing people?
The only people who matter are those 9 “Judges.”
I think its a good thing
If candidates don't have standing to challenge elections or electoral rules, and voters don't either, who does?
Careful. That kind of inquiry has been known to close down the comment section...
"Elections are important, but so are many things in life."
I thought Amy Coney Barrett was born in Minnesota; she was not. The Associate Justice was born in Louisiana.
Achilles: "Why do we even bother electing people? The only people who matter are those 9 “Judges.”"
Well someone has to decide if the election was conducted according to the rules. Who would you have do that?
Or would you get people to follow the rules McMinn County style? CC, JSM
"Someone has to be allowed to have standing for the challenge, so why not the losing candidate?"
Is he a Democrat?
Still trying to understand why states challenging the 2020 election had no standing, but every state since November 2024 has had "standing" to challenge every action of the Trump administration.
Standing is just Bullshit. A reason judges use to deny plaintiffs they don't like. There is no consistency.
ACB is just a 21st century Grandma O'connor. No bright lines for her - or consistent judicial philosophy.
To echo Boatbuilder's comment at @12:40, the question that came to my mind when the SCOTUS shut down the review of the Pennsylvania results in 2020 by declaring that 17 state attorneys general & members of the Penn.legislature had no standing was "Well, who the fuck possibly has standing to contest election results?". And that, no doubt, was part of the plan. No one has standing to contest an election, so election rigging is a crime without a penalty.
john mosby said...
Achilles: "Why do we even bother electing people? The only people who matter are those 9 “Judges.”"
Well someone has to decide if the election was conducted according to the rules. Who would you have do that?
A unitary executive.
"I see no reason to afford candidates favored status."
Seems like this isn't favored status, just affording candidates some status rather than no status.
I guess if no one has standing then letting some people have status is favored, but it seems absurd that elections all too often are seen that no one has status to contest in court. It also makes the grumpiness turn from legal resolution to less palatable approaches.
Our courts continue ruling in cases in such a way as to CREATE the possibility for fraud.
We should ignore the orders of this crooked fucking court, at least one member of which has the IQ of an 8-year-old child.
Roberts pretty much demolishes the ACB dissent which on the face of it is poorly reasoned. We have judges state and federal deciding what ballots can be counted and when they can be counted. And what kind of ID is required to vote.
Yet per ACB a candidate can't sue because he's not losing any $$. Huh? As Roberts states candidates have a stake in how elections are held and ballots are counted.
Again, the D judges are voting their politics. Maybe ACB is too.
On the bright side the Supreme Court just vindicated the J6 protestors and their fight against the corrupt government and courts that illegally ratified the stolen 2020 election.
Now we get to watch democrats claim that lawsuits against the stolen election are invalid because of statute of limitations.
At one point in 2020 and 2021 the Judges were ruling the you can't sue about election fraud after the election. The election is over - too late. So sad, so bad.
And in 2022 the judges were claiming you couldn't sue before an election - you haven't been harmed.
BTW, has the court allowed states to demand proof of citizenship to vote? Or it that somehow "Unconstitional" (LOL).
RCOCEAN II said...
At one point in 2020 and 2021 the Judges were ruling the you can't sue about election fraud after the election. The election is over - too late. So sad, so bad.
And in 2022 the judges were claiming you couldn't sue before an election - you haven't been harmed.
Our entire federal judiciary has proven that they serve no good purpose.
Ocean: That is the standing-laches-mootness trap. I forget which of our commenters came up with the concept. CC, JSM
Tim and Christopher B hit my concern. I’m only happy with the ruling because it seemed nobody ever had standing to bring a case for an unfair election. But the remedy of a special carve out seems contrived.
" Of course, every citizen does have an interest and standing should be granted on that ground."
But standing doctrine has long rejected citizen standing. The plaintiff must have a "individualized stake" in the outcome and not just a "generalized grievance."
The Court's standing doctrine works well enough in the mine run of cases. But in the more politically sensitive ones, it has lots of bespoke rules, depending on whether the interest being advanced by the plaintiff strikes the court as worthy. Environmental cases are an easy example, where courts are especially willing to find standing, sometimes based only on the plaintiff's interest in continuing to enjoying an unspoiled vista of the great outdoors. A candidate's interest in enforcing a fair electoral process seems at least as plausible.
If I'm going to have something that's bespoke, it has to be a bicycle
But apparently those important things include only "pocketbook issues".
Women. Pocketbooks. You do the math.
The plaintiff must have a "individualized stake" in the outcome and not just a "generalized grievance."
If only this applied to people protesting ICE.
But standing doctrine has long rejected citizen standing. The plaintiff must have a "individualized stake" in the outcome and not just a "generalized grievance."
Doesn't the candidate have an individualized stake? The candidate's party?
Under ACB's analysis it sounds like only big donors have standing.
If you just have a "generalized grievance", you move to Minnesota and battle ICE, both real and imagined.
PS According to ALMOST all physicist, nothing is "real", not even ICE. So, the best thing is to stay where you are and leave Minnesotans to deal with not so nice ICE.
Elections are important, but so are many things in life.
This from a justice who spent yesterday listening to argument about whether guys have a Constitutional right to stomp girls in sporting events.
Sidenote: So how does a state have "standing" to sue over a tarriff adjustment?
"Elections are important, but so are many things" has to be one of the moronic statements ever written by a SCOTUS judge. Given that elections decide who will represent the people and write the laws and govern the country it'd be hard to think of anymore more important.
But I guess when you're an unelected judge with life tenure, "Elections" seem rather minor.
Elections are always going to be "generalized grievance". Maybe that's a dumb standard for elections. It's almost like the courts don't want to assure clean elections. So no, elections are not important.
I'd like to ask ACB what's more important than elections.
“But standing doctrine has long rejected citizen standing. The plaintiff must have a "individualized stake" in the outcome and not just a "generalized grievance."
At the risk of piling on, I would say that the above statement has the effect of giving citizens rights under law that can’t be enforced in the courts, so there is no redress of violation.
Make after-certification-audits mandatory, let's say, starting 3 months after an office is sworn in. A detailed examination might well catch a lot of frauds so that the laws can be strengthened.
Lots of people don't want detailed examinations or strengthened laws. Because, you know, it would interfere with cheating.
"Make after-certification-audits mandatory, let's say, starting 3 months after an office is sworn in. A detailed examination might well catch a lot of frauds so that the laws can be strengthened."
Audits would be valuable if they DIDN'T expose a lot of frauds, simply as means of restoring public confidence in elections. Part of the evidence (IMO) of the fixing of the 2020 election is the pathological zeal displayed by dems in trying to criminalize any questioning of the outcome. If they thought the election was clean, why wouldn't they support efforts take a closer look? Wouldn't Biden and the dems have benefitted from a fulsome investigation that concluded that he won fair and square?
This is just one reason why I am happy that I retired from the Practice of Law. I seldom read US Supreme Court opinions anymore, since I realize, like almost all American citizens, that they don't affect your life at all if you are a law abiding, honest person. But still. This one is interesting
bagoh20 said...
Elections are always going to be "generalized grievance". Maybe that's a dumb standard for elections. It's almost like the courts don't want to assure clean elections. So no, elections are not important.
Why are a bunch of Harvard/Yale trained from the crib judges not concerned about secure elections?
The world will never know.
Amy Comey Barret was chosen at a young age and groomed to become a Supreme Court Justice.
Trump was duped.
So who would have picked instead who was confirmable by the possums
I believe the finding was correct in that it was only about the right to challenge if the candidate had a personal stake. However, the finding should have been very clear that this was not about counting votes.
The IRS, a part of the Federal government, accepts tax returns postmarked by the filing deadline with no limits on when those returns actually arrive. That is true for most if not all state revenue departments also.
Further, the Chief Justice's analogy comparing to a 100 yd dash, like many of his decisions on this court, was shallow and ill-thought-out.
Soon, the GOP position is that any votes cast on election day but not counted that day for whatever reason should not be counted?
Christopher B said...
Who would have had standing to challenge it before? Nobody?
That was the effect before this ruling.
CHildren: ACB & Kagan voted that teh candidate COULD sue, that he had standing, because he was forced to pay for poll watchers in the two weeks when ballots were allowed to come in.
So stop bitching about her decision. She came to the right answer: yes, he can sue, before the election
Now, I happen to agree with Roberts that someone whose job is dependent upon the election results, and on people trusting the election results, has a "more than general citizen" level of interest in the election rules. But I'm perfectly fine with the ACB approach here, because "anti rule that forces a candidate to provide extra poll watchers gives the candidate the right to sue" is pretty much going to cover all the cases we want to sue on.
You all need to learn how to take the victory and be happy.
Kakistocracy said...
The IRS, a part of the Federal government, accepts tax returns postmarked by the filing deadline with no limits on when those returns actually arrive. That is true for most if not all state revenue departments also.
Well, Kak, perhaps you're just a complete babbling ignoramus here, as opposed to your normal lying leftists schtick, but IL also accepts ballots without a postmark:
Key Rules for Late-Arriving BallotsIllinois allows vote-by-mail ballots to be counted if received up to 14 days after Election Day (during the period for counting provisional ballots). The treatment depends on whether there's a postmark:If postmarked on or before Election Day: These are routinely accepted and counted if received within the 14-day window.
If no postmark (or no usable intelligent mail barcode tracking): The ballot envelope is opened to check the date on the voter's signature certification (the affidavit where the voter certifies when they completed the ballot).
If the certification date is on or before Election Day, and the ballot is otherwise valid (e.g., signature matches, no other defects), it will be counted.
I promise you: the IRS won't credit you for having an April 15 tax return if it comes in late, with no postmark, just because you put "April 15" on the "signed on" block.
Also: one POINT of having an election deadline is that it keeps people from finding out how many votes they need to fake up to steal the election, and then submitting them. With a postage machine I can put fake postmarks on an envelop with whatever date I want.
The IRS doesn't care. People who value honest elections, OTOH, do care
@Greg ... No sale. The ACB/Kagan opinion is just a roadmap that would allow a state to avoid judicial scrutiny of election procedures by making sure candidates are not required to spend money. As Josephbleau noted, lack of standing produces a situation where citizens have rights that nobody can enforce. I would be happier if they said they think election procedures are political questions for the elected branches of government to sort out but I suspect that isn't the case, and both want to the courts to be able to manipulate standing decisions so that they can meddle in elections (or not, as the case may be) to produce the 'right' result. If any candidate has standing then they can't do that.
Christopher B said...
@Greg ... No sale. The ACB/Kagan opinion is just a roadmap that would allow a state to avoid judicial scrutiny of election procedures by making sure candidates are not required to spend money
Awesome!
That means no election activity after Election Day! Because if there's election activity, then the candidates need to provide their own poll watchers, which means candidates have to spend $$.
No ballots coming in. No activity of any sort that could change the election outcome.
If you want to legitimately black pill here, you need to provide something they could do that would actually
1: be bad
2: not be something that the candidate could say "I'll have to spend more because of that".
You try to do that, and for everything you offer, I'll do my best to work out a way the candidate can legitimately say "I have to spend more because of that". I bet I'll win :-)
Greg, TCT: "With a postage machine I can put fake postmarks on an envelop with whatever date I want." True. As a former Postmaster, I can attest to that. But, a caveat: when we (any employee of the USPS) found a postmark earlier than the actual date, we physically returned all the mailpieces to the sender to be re-postmarked with a zero postage amount. This happened frequently: staff at businesses would run all the mail on a Friday afternoon and not make dispatch for that day, instead dropping it into the mailstream on the next business day, Monday. This is not to say that some "bad" postmarked metered mail doesn't get through. It does. It's like you getting your neighbor's mail. It happens.
It seems that the only person with standing gt due in election case is Al Gore.
I think that it would depend upon what side of the political divide the screaming women come from. I do recognize that, for one side, screaming is entirely normal behavior.
No More Kings! Fuck the judges. All of them. The most arrogant son's of bitches to ever walk the planet.
Marcus Bressler said...
Greg, TCT: "With a postage machine I can put fake postmarks on an envelop with whatever date I want." True. As a former Postmaster, I can attest to that. But, a caveat: when we (any employee of the USPS) found a postmark earlier than the actual date, we physically returned all the mailpieces to the sender to be re-postmarked with a zero postage amount.
That would normally be true. But I aim not willing to bet an election on that being true when Democrats are creating fake ballots to steal an election, and have a confederate at the post office to make sure they go through.
Anyone claiming "that's a conspiracy theory" needs to address the reality of Somalis engaging in $billions in fraud in MN, and the Dem Governor & his cohorts successfully muzzling all fraud reporting for YEARS while that happened.
People who would steal money, would also steal elections so that they can steal more money.
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