Bost v. Illinois Bd. of Elections
The Court holds that a political candidate has Article III standing to challenge the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election. Congressman Michael Bost may therefore pursue his suit against Illinois's practice of counting mail-in ballots received up to two weeks after Election Day — without having to show that the rule risks costing him the election, a significant vote threshold, or money.
Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r05_e2q3.pdf
Case background
Illinois law requires election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked or certified no later than election day and received within two weeks of election day. Congressman Michael Bost and two other political candidates filed a lawsuit claiming that counting ballots received after election day violates federal law. They principally contended that doing so conflicts with 2 U.S.C. § 7 and 3 U.S.C. § 1, which set election day as the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. The district court dismissed the case, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed on the ground that petitioners lacked standing.
Questions Presented
- Whether Petitioners, as federal candidates, have pleaded sufficient factual allegations to show Article III standing to challenge state time, place, and manner regulations concerning their federal elections.
Holding
As a candidate for office, Congressman Bost has standing to challenge the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election. Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns — their interest extends to the integrity of the election and the democratic process by which they earn or lose the support of the people they seek to represent. Candidates need not show a substantial risk that a rule will cause them to lose the election or prevent them from achieving a legally significant vote threshold.
The Court
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh joined. Justice Barrett filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Justice Kagan joined. Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Sotomayor joined.
What this episode contains
This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Bost v. Illinois Bd. of Elections, written by Justice Roberts.
AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Roberts. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.