Elections don’t work if the public doesn’t have confidence in them. Public confidence requires clear rules that are known well ahead of time.
Particularly in jurisdictions that permit mail ballot voting, courts should encourage persons who may be affected by rules like signature verification and mailing requirements to bring any legal challenges to rules as far in advance of elections as possible.
This way courts have time to consider the issues without emergency briefing and other hurried procedures that invariably stress courts’ ability to decide these cases. Unfortunately, some courts, including the Third Circuit here, have sought to avoid deciding these cases by adopting rules of standing that mean only a candidate whose election is immediately threatened by a rule can bring a legal case.
This is a bad idea: it forces election lawsuits into emergency proceedings that are often decided right before or right after an election. This makes decision-making difficult and injures public confidence in elections affected by last-minute litigation while at the same time tainting the courts hearing these cases with the partisan acrimony that comes with close elections.
The Supreme Court should take this opportunity to affirm that early legal challenges are better for the courts and our politics than last-minute litigation that cannot help but appear to force courts to pick political winners and losers.
Read the opinion here: Bette Eakin et al., v. Adams County Board of Elections et al.