Election Law
Election law is less a single doctrine than a set of recurring fights: who may vote, who writes the rules, and how late a court may change them. The doctrines below are the ones that actually decide cases, each with the leading authority attached.
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment and the Poll Tax
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, ratified in 1964, bars conditioning the right to vote in a federal election on payment of "any poll tax or other tax." Two years later the Supreme Court extended the principle to state elections on equal protection grounds. The rule is narrow in text and broad in consequence: a state may not put a price on the ballot. The live question is never a literal poll tax anymore, it is whether a fee, a document cost, or an administrative charge amounts to one in effect.
The Purcell Principle
Courts should hesitate to change election rules as an election approaches, because late judicial intervention risks voter confusion and administrative chaos. Purcell is cited constantly and defined rarely. It is not a doctrine with elements, it is a thumb on the scale whose weight has grown, and the fight in most modern cases is over how close to the election is close enough to trigger it.
- Purcell v. Gonzalez
- Bush v. Gore
Anderson-Burdick Balancing
The default framework for challenges to the mechanics of voting. A court weighs the burden a rule places on the right to vote against the state's justification for it. Severe burdens draw strict scrutiny, while reasonable and nondiscriminatory restrictions draw a lighter look. Nearly every dispute about deadlines, signature rules, drop boxes, and ballot access runs through this test.
- Anderson v. Celebrezze
- Burdick v. Takushi
The Voting Rights Act After Shelby County
Section 5 preclearance required covered jurisdictions to get federal approval before changing voting rules. Shelby County v. Holder struck down the coverage formula in 2013, leaving Section 5 intact but with nothing to cover. Section 2, which bars practices that deny or abridge the vote on account of race, absorbed the work and is now the main battleground, particularly in redistricting.
- South Carolina v. Katzenbach
- Allen v. Milligan
- Callais v. Landry
The Elections Clause and Who Sets the Rules
The Elections Clause assigns the times, places, and manner of congressional elections to state legislatures, subject to Congress overriding them. The recurring question is how much of that authority belongs to the legislature alone as against state courts, state constitutions, and election officials, and how far Congress can go when it does step in.
- Foster v. Love
- Reynolds v. Sims