4th Circuit Rejects Right-Wing Challenge to Maryland Election Administration
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the Maryland State Board of Elections’ (MDSBE) administration of voter rolls and voting machines.
Radical right-wing groups Maryland Election Integrity and United Sovereign Americans first brought the suit in March. In their complaint, they accused the MDSBE of maintaining inaccurate voter rolls, using voting machines with higher than allowable error rates and unreviewed software code, and failing to provide requested records. The plaintiffs asked the court to halt the administration and certification of elections until all voters are “provably a U.S. citizen,” the tabulation of votes is “provably secure” and the entire election process is “fully auditable.”
The state moved to dismiss the lawsuit for lacking standing and failing to show how the plaintiffs were harmed. The court agreed, writing that the plaintiffs alleged only “generalized grievances.”
On May 15, 2024, the plaintiffs appealed the decision to the 4th Circuit. In their opinion today the three-judge panel wrote that because the plaintiffs failed to show any concrete way they were harmed or would be harmed in the future by current processes, the judges upheld the lower court’s decision. Voter roll maintenance and election administration processes in Maryland will remain unchanged.
United Sovereign Americans is an ultra-conservative legal group that disrupts elections by sowing doubt about the validity of voter rolls and election administration. It is currently engaged in six active lawsuits attacking voting rights across the country.
Original post, May 20, 2024
A radical challenge to Maryland’s election administration will now go before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after right-wing groups appealed the dismissal of their case.
On May 8, just in time for the state’s May 14 primary election, a federal judge dismissed a longshot case seeking to upend election administration in Maryland. Filed on behalf of Maryland Election Integrity and United Sovereign Americans — a right-wing group that identifies itself as trying to “get answers to clear questions about election fraud” — the case challenges the state’s voter roll maintenance policies and use of voting machines.
The lawsuit goes as far as requesting that the court prevent the Maryland Board of Elections from certifying any election until the groups’ claims of irregularities and other perceived violations were remedied. The district court declined that request, so now the right-wing plaintiffs are asking the 4th Circuit to consider their case.
In the dismissal of the far-flung challenge, the district court judge found that the plaintiffs lacked the ability to bring their lawsuit and failed to show that the groups would be harmed by the state’s election procedures. “Here, the mere hypothetical possibility of a past, speculative injury,” the judge wrote of the groups’ claims, “does not give rise to a certainly impending injury.”
The decision dismissing the case marked the first failure for the United Sovereign Americans, an emerging right-wing group that has vowed to pursue an aggressive litigation strategy ahead of the 2024 elections.
In a profile of United Sovereign Americans, Sarah D. Wire and Mackenzie Mays of the Los Angeles Times described the group as “part of a cottage industry of far-right election deniers that has sown disinformation since Trump lost his reelection bid.” The group is “prepared” to file similar lawsuits in nine states and “preparing evidence” in 13 others, according to its website.
As the right continues to ramp up its attacks on election administration, Democracy Docket is currently tracking 18 active anti-voting cases that challenge state’s voter roll maintenance policies or the use of electronic voting machines. Just this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a fringe case out of Oregon seeking to upend the state’s mail-in voting system and end the use of voting machines in the state.