Democratic voters in Ohio launched two federal suits against vote challengers and the rulings have been made on both…
Up in Akron, a Republican-appointed Federal Judge ruled that vote challengers can remain in the polling places, but only as monitors. Apparently this means they they cannot challenge a voter. (So what would be the point of the challengers being in there at all, I wonder?)
Meanwhile, down in Cincinatti, a Clinton appointee Federal Judge ruled that voter challenges are unconstitutional and are barred from the polling places altogether.
According to FOX news, the GOP will challenge the Cininatti decision.
Now, since these rulings were made in federal courts, I should imagine the rulings would apply to all 50 states, pending the appeal to the Supreme Court, of course.
Will the Supreme Court side with Bush again?
Another interesting sidelight. Rehnquist is out rehabbing his thyroid cancer treatment. What happens if the 8 remaining justices split down the middle, as they well might? Will the Cincinatti ruling become the law of the land?
I believe it was acknowledged last week that Rehnquist can contribute his ruling from home, if it comes down to it. (Will hunt down a cite if skeptics there be.)
I always suspected the Chief Justice was phoning it in!
A federal district court’s decision applies only to the specific parties and, in the case of a statutory challenge, only to the specific statute that is under question. It does not apply to similar statutes in other states.
A federal appeals court’s holding must be followed by all the district courts in its circuit.
A federal district court doesn’t create precedent at all. The court’s ruling applies only to the case in which it was made.
The federal circuit courts do make precedential rulings which are good law in their own circuits. Other circuits may find these ruling persuasive, or they may disregard them.
The Supreme Court’s rulings are the only ones binding on the whole country.
It’s not Cincinnati; it’s Ohio. The law in question is a state law. If the court says it’s unconstitutional, then it’s unconstitutional. There’s no way to apply such a holding just to Cincinnati.
(Even if we were talking just about Cincinnati, Cincinnati itself is majority Democratic, while the surrounding suburbs and countryside are majority Republican. There would be plenty of opportunities to challenge voters who support either party.)
SCOTUS could hear this case tomorrow based on extreme need (or whatever the lawyerly term is). If they do and then rule in favor of the lower court’s decision, it would then apply to the entire country?
How long did it take The Supremes to rule on the Florida boondoggle? They could work even faster for this case.
So let’s say the Court and the lawyers get something done today and the judges rule mañana. It would be a glorious opportunity for the SCOTUS to end voter harassment of this type.
I know this varies from state to state, but as I understand it “challengers” are not just there to challenge voters they think are not valid.
In my state, a challenger may observe any part of the process pretty closely (except the actual marking of the ballots by voters). A poll watcher has to stay in a public area, but a challenger may be behind the tables with the poll workers. They are not allowed to touch any materials, but they get a much closer view of what’s going on. So while not being allowed to challenge voters may take away a big part of their purpose, it doesn’t make them irrelevant. At least not around here.
What kind of voter harrassment are you talking about? Is ALL challenging of voters harrassment? To my knowledge, this is a pretty broad ruling, not allowing them to challenge any voters whatsoever. There can be valid reasons to challenge voters and I don’t think that’s harrassment.
I certainly would support some strong language limiting how voters can be challenged (ending, for example, what happened in GA where something like 90% of the voters in one county who were Hispanic were challenged in advance on the basis of citizenship, because some yokel assumed every voter named Mendez and Garcia must surely be an alien with faked registration). I’d like to see challengers be required to have good cause, etc. But I don’t think it’s a good thing to ban all of it, and I don’t equate such a ban with ending voter harrassment.
It was the same here in MI when I was an election inspector. One possible reasons for challengers present is to watch to make sure the election inspectors aren’t altering or discarding votes.
I may have misunderstood, but I think that “challengers” are there for the purpose of challenging the credentials of voters and their right to vote. They are not the same as the observers who watch to see that no hanky-panky is going on by polling officials.
Polling officials can still challenge uncredentialed voters. (Maybe that is what the provisional ballots are for.) It’s just that John Q. Public cannot go into a polling place and challenge someone’s right to vote.
Rick’s statement here may be misunderstood, not because he’s in error, but because it’s not completely clear.
Any ruling from any court creates a precedent. The issue is, is that precedent binding on other courts? And the answer is, only those courts “below” it in the appellate pecking order.
Certainly a court hearing a case in which it is alleged that Jones violated standard contract X with Smith in respect of term Y is not going to be decided ab initio by the court hearing it – lawyers for both sides will be citing precedents galore in support of their contentions.
And the judge may consider those precedents compelling, or not, as he chooses.
Except if the ruling came from a court directly “above” him. In that case, and that case alone, it’s binding, and must be incorporated in his decision.
So: Any Federal District Court sets precedents. But they’re not binding on other Federal courts, except for the rare instance where a Federal magistrate is ruling on an issue (speeding ticket on a Federal reservation, for example) which has been decided in a Federal District Court “above” him. Any district court may consider, and either accept or refuse precedent from, the ruling of another district court in a similar case.
Federal appellate courts – Circuit Courts – hear appeals from a multi-state “circuit,” and their decisions are binding precedent on the federal courts in the states in that circuit, and where a federal question is present, in the state courts of those states.
If you recall the arguments about SCOTUS considering foreign precedents a few months back, that was a case where SCOTUS was taking guidance as to how other countries dealt with similar issues. It did not, and could not, constitute binding precedent* in U.S. courts, but it did serve to help them form their opinions, in the non-binding sense of precedent.
It’s plausible that there might be rare instances where the treaty-making power could create a valid foreign precedent that would be binding as regards matters related to nationals of that foreign state who become parties to cases in U.S. courts. That’s pretty hypothetical, but it would constitute an exception to this statement.
Like I said, it varies from state to state. In Ohio, they may be focused exclusively on registration of voters, but in Michigan they may challenge any of the election procedures, such as whether electioneering is taking place within 100 feet of the polls, etc.
