Election security
Recent State Election Law Challenges: In Brief
During the final months and weeks leading up to the November 8, 2016, presidential election,
courts across the country have ruled in numerous challenges to state election laws. For example,
there have been recent court rulings affecting the laws regulating early voting, voter photo
identification (ID) requirements, registration procedures, straight-party voting, and voter rolls.
Accordingly, many such laws have been recently invalidated, enjoined, or altered. Others
continue to be subject to litigation.
Recent rulings in Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas are illustrative examples. In
Michigan, a court preliminarily enjoined a 2016 law that ended the ability of voters to vote for a
political party’s entire slate of candidates with a single notation—straight-party voting—
concluding that it was likely that the challengers would succeed on the merits of their claims
under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment. In North Carolina, a court invalidated several recent changes to that
state’s election laws, including a voter photo ID law, holding that the laws were enacted with a
racially discriminatory intent in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment and Section 2 of the VRA.
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