ballot ordering

By: Daniel Bruce

In a previous article on the ongoing challenge to West Virginia’s ballot order statute, I highlighted the growing importance of the Political Question Doctrine to challenges to election administration laws like the one at issue in Nelson v. Warner.

As a refresher, W. Va. Code § 3-6-2(c)(3) requires candidates appearing on statewide ballots to be placed in the order of the party whose candidate received the highest number of statewide votes in the previous presidential election. The state’s Democratic Party is challenging the law based on the “primacy effect” granted to Republican candidates who appear first on the ballot.

By Daniel Bruce

A ballot order challenge currently pending before the Fourth Circuit may have significant implications for the development of political question doctrine following the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Rucho v. Common Cause.

In August, the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia enjoined the West Virginia Secretary of State from enforcing the state’s nearly thirty-year-old ballot order statute and ordered it to implement a nondiscriminatory alternative for the 2020 election. Passed by Democrats in 1991, W. Va. Code § 3-6-2(c)(3) requires candidates appearing on statewide ballots to be placed in the order of the party whose candidate received the highest number of statewide votes in the previous presidential election.

Is It Time for SCOTUS to Revisit the Anderson-Burdick Test?: Insights from the Challenge to West Virginia’s Ballot Order Statute

In a Challenge to West Virginia’s Ballot Order Law, Will the Fourth Circuit Continue a Post-Rucho Trend of Limiting Federal Review of State Election Laws?