California Mail-in Voting Challenge

Lawsuit filed by an “election integrity” group, Election Integrity Project California (EIPCa), and voters, including two failed congressional and Senate candidates, against California Secretary of State Shirley Weber (D), California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) and several county registrars of voters. The lawsuit originally filed in 2021 by EIPCa and several other failed congressional candidates included a radical independent state legislature theory argument that suggested the defendants “violated the Elections Clause by usurping the California State Legislature’s constitutional authority to set the manner of elections,” but the complaint has since been amended to drop that claim along with certain plaintiffs. The remaining plaintiffs argue that California voting laws, regulations and guidelines that have created universal mail-in voting, opened online voter registration, allowed for community ballot collection, regulated poll observers and otherwise expanded voting are unconstitutional. Specifically, the plaintiffs assert that California Assembly Bill 860, Assembly Bill 37, Senate Bill 503, Senate Bill 397, Senate Bill 450 and several sections of the California Code of Regulations that pertain to elections are unconstitutional. 

The plaintiffs allege that the defendants violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the 14th Amendment by “implementing laws, regulations, and procedures that diminish the value of in-person voters, including EIPCa’s observers and Plaintiffs in their respective counties.” The plaintiffs request an audit of all mail-in ballots, “remade or duplicated ballots, adjudicated ballots, and other documents used to cast votes in all elections since the November 2020 election” along with an order to preserve and audit “all voting machines, software, peripherals (including flash drives and other memory storage), computers, reports generated, and other data and equipment used to cast, examine, count, tabulate, modify, store or transmit votes or voting data since the November 2020 election.” On June 14, 2021, a federal court dismissed the case. The plaintiffs appealed this to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which dismissed some of the plaintiffs claims, vacated (meaning voided) the district court’s holding that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the lawsuit and sent the case back to the district court for further proceedings.

The case was dismissed on July 18, 2023. The plaintiffs appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Oral argument in this case was held on Feb. 5, 2024.

RESULT: On Aug 15, 2024, a three judge panel on the 9th Circuit upheld the decision dismissing this case. Mail-in voting in California remains in effect.

Last updated: August 16, 2024 9:35 am EST