Dissent from En Banc Fourth Circuit Order Allowing State Agency to Extend Absentee Deadline

POLITICS & POLICY

By a vote of 12 to 3—with, to my surprise, all three of President Trump’s appointees in the majority—the en banc Fourth Circuit today (in Wise v. Circosta) denied the request by Republican legislators in North Carolina for emergency injunctive relief barring the state board of elections from extending by six days its deadline for the receipt of absentee ballots for the upcoming election.

Here are excerpts from the opening of the joint dissent of Judge Wilkinson and Judge Agee, joined by Judge Niemeyer (some citations simplified or omitted; underlining added):

We dissent from the court’s grant of a hearing en banc in this case and the failure of the court to grant appellants’ motions for injunctions against the North Carolina State Board of Elections pending appeal. Because of this case’s importance, we judge it is necessary to lay out our reasoning with clarity. This course is necessary in order to draw attention to the accelerating pace of pre-election litigation in this country and all the damaging consequences ensuing therefrom.

Here, as in Andino v. Middleton (U.S. Oct. 5, 2020), we are faced with nonrepresentative entities changing election law immediately preceding or during a federal election. In making those changes, they have undone the work of the elected state legislatures, to which the Constitution clearly and explicitly delegates the power to “prescribe[]” “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections.” The Constitution does not assign these powers holistically to the state governments but rather pinpoints a particular branch of state government—“the Legislatures thereof.” Whether it is a federal court—as it was in Andino—or a state election board—as it is here—does not matter; both are unaccountable entities stripping power from the legislatures. They are changing the rules of the game in the middle of an election—exactly what Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1 (2006), counsels against. By the time the Board changed the rules, voters had cast over 150,000 ballots in North Carolina.

Let’s understand the strategy that is being deployed here. The status quo is the election law enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly. The Constitution grants state legislatures that power. Principles of democratic accountability reinforce it. The fair notice to all voters of election ground rules well in advance of Election Day commend it.

Then along come the disruptive efforts of federal courts or, in this case, a state election board to upend the set rules right in the middle of an election. The disruptors then hail their action as the new status quo, which is (the irony of this is rich) claimed to be beyond any power of disturbance.

It takes no special genius to know what this insidious formula is producing. Our country is now plagued by a proliferation of pre-election litigation that creates confusion and turmoil and that threatens to undermine public confidence in the federal courts, state agencies, and the elections themselves.

Only by repairing to state legislative intent can we extricate ourselves from this debilitating condition. The statutes of state legislatures are our sole North Star. When, as here, the plain wording of those enactments is transgressed, the entire body politic pays a grievous price. In the service of policy objectives, the majority is stripping state legislatures of the responsibility our founding charter has assigned them. And in so doing, it has encouraged others to regard state statutes as little more than advisory and for pre-election litigants fair game….

As for Scarnati v. Boockvar (U.S. Oct. 20, 2020), where a stay was denied by the Supreme Court on a 4-4 vote: the circumstances here are materially different. For one thing, the petition in Boockvar was brought to the court by representatives of a single house of the Pennsylvania legislature, whereas here representatives of both houses are united in their petition before the courts. In addition, the questionable circumstances that plainly indicated a state agency’s subversion of the state legislature’s intent were not present in the Pennsylvania case. The agency’s extension of the statutory receipt deadline for mailed absentee ballots was twice as long as in the Pennsylvania suit. Nor did the Pennsylvania action involve the elimination by an agency of a statutory witness signature requirement. In short, this case presents a clean opportunity for the Supreme Court to right the abrogation of a clear constitutional mandate and to impart to the federal elections process a strong commitment to the rule of law.

Allowing the Board’s changes to go into effect now, two weeks before the election and after half a million people have voted in North Carolina, would cause yet further intolerable chaos. Thus for the reasons that follow, we dissent and would grant the request for an injunction pending appeal. We urge plaintiffs to take this case up to the Supreme Court immediately. Not tomorrow. Not the next day. Now.

In a separate dissent, Judge Niemeyer points out that the case “was originally assigned to a panel, but the work of the panel was hastily preempted by an en banc vote requested by the panel’s dissenter after the panel majority had shared its views but before those views could be published.”

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