September 2020

The Purcell principle: A presumption against last-minute changes to election procedures Under the Purcell principle, courts should not change election rules during the period of time just prior to an election because doing so could confuse voters and create problems for officials administering the election. The principle takes its name from Purcell v. Gonzalez, in which the Supreme Court reversed an October 2006 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit blocking an Arizona voter ID law during that year’s midterm election. The district court had initially denied...

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is widely considered to be the single most important federal statute protecting the right to vote. The Act contains a number of important provisions, but today it is Section 2 of the Act that continues to have the greatest impact. Adopted essentially as an enforcement mechanism for the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee that the right to vote cannot be abridged “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” Section 2 allows anyone to seek judicial relief who believes that a state or local...

The Anderson-Burdick doctrine: Balancing the benefits and burdens of voting restrictions Almost any voting rule or procedure can be subjected to judicial scrutiny under doctrinal analysis known as Anderson-Burdick balancing. This balancing test requires courts to weigh burdens that a state imposes on electoral participation against the state’s asserted benefits, although the way in which courts are supposed to conduct this balancing is the subject of much dispute and uncertainty. Named for two Supreme Court precedents involving candidates’ access to the ballot — Anderson v. Celebrezze and Burdick v. Takushi — this...

Shelby County v. Holder is a 2013 case in which a divided Supreme Court struck down the provision of the Voting Rights Act containing the formula that was used to identify state and local governments that must get approval from the federal government before making any changes to their voting laws and procedures – a process known as “preclearance.” The preclearance requirement, found in Section 5 of the law, was designed to prevent voting-related discrimination by governments with a history of such discrimination; until the court’s 2013 decision, it applied to...