Court Cases, State and Local Elections

THE CONSTITUTION OF the United States put elections into the hands of the states, but with some ultimate supervision by the federal government. State election laws can be found published in the state codes of the 50 states. The state codes are organized topically in an alphabetical order, with laws such as “elections” grouped into titles. If there is an annotated edition of the state code, there will be state, and sometimes federal, cases that have been adjudicated relevant to that section of the code cited as well.

While the U.S. Supreme Court does not issue advisory opinions, the chief legal officer of most, if not all, states, who is usually call the state's attorney general, often will. The advisory opinions of the attorney general affecting the election code are usually also included in the state's election code.

A state election code may begin with the organization of the voting districts for federal elections. These have to be published as part of the state law following the reapportionment required after every decennial national census. There have been numerous cases challenging the redistricting because the process is fraught with opportunities for gerrymandering.

Once the federal districts are settled upon, the next subject may be the eligibility of individuals for office. Usually the candidates for office will be the individual, certified by the appropriate party official from the county, district, or state level party office. Independents who are running without the imprimatur of a political party will be eligible to be placed on the ballot, if a filing fee has been paid.

However, states have numerous restrictions from public office that are applied to persons convicted of crimes such as election fraud, malfeasance in office, felony involving moral turpitude, or other crimes unless their civil rights have been restored. In Georgia, cases such as Hutto v. Rowland (1970) or Ingram v. Lott(l977) dealt with these kinds of legal issues.

Other election issues include the date of election, the election of presidential electors, the performance of duties by presidential electors, filling a vacancy in the list of presidential electors in case of death or disability, their payment, moving forward the last day of an elector to act when the final date is a Saturday or a Sunday, and other similar issues. These issues have been adjudicated in various states from time to time.

Other issues include the selling of liquor on election days. The courts in the several states follow their respective state laws. For some states, election days are times for prohibition of the sale of alcohol. Such election days include elections, in general, and even elections for minor issues such as the sale of hospital bonds, school bonds, and for a special-purpose local-option sales tax.

The election code of each state includes laws organizing the state's election officers from the state's chief election officer, who is usually the secretary of state, to the local offices and the boards of voter registration. The goal of the state election board is to promote uniformity in voting procedures and to intervene in cases of contested elections, where needed. Other issues may include the authority to remove a name from the ballot, or to recognize that there is no legal provision to remove a name from the ballot granted to the state election board. Numerous cases have been adjudicated in the states over these kinds of issues.

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