On January 14, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Bost v Illinois State Board of Elections, 24-568.  The opinion, by Chief Justice John Roberts, says that candidates have standing to challenge election laws even if it is not likely that the candidate is harmed in any concrete way by the challenged law.  The opinion for the Court is only ten pages.  Two justices dissented and two other justices signed the opinion but said they would have limited the holding.

The plaintiff, Illinois Congressmember Michael J. Bost, challenged the Illinois law that allowed postal ballots to count if they arrive within two weeks of election day.  Congressman Bost always wins overwhelmingly.  The lower courts said he didn’t have standing because he couldn’t show that the law injured him.  But the U.S. Supreme Court majority report says candidates have automatic standing to challenge election laws governing counting of votes.

It says, “A candidate has a personal stake in the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election…Candidates have an interest in a fair process…the long-shot and shoo-in alike…whether these decisions help, hurt, or have no effect on a candidate’s electoral prospects, they deprive the candidate of a fair process and an accurate result.”

Page five says “The counting of unlawful votes – or discarding of lawful ones – erodes public confidence that the election results reflect the people’s will.”

The Bost decision should make it easier for declared write-in candidates to challenge failure to tally their votes.  Jurisdictions that won’t tally write-in votes, even for candidates who filed a write-in declaration of candidacy, are Alaska, the District of Columbia, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington.

The Bost decision should also make it easier for candidates to challenge campaign finance laws that let contributors give more money to the nominees of qualified parties than to other candidates for the same office.  Although the Bost opinion only deals with counting votes, the philosophy behind the decision supports the concept that the Second Circuit was wrong when it said the Upstate Jobs Party didn’t have standing to challenge a New York law that let people give higher contributions to the nominees of qualified parties.  And it similarly suggests that the Eleventh Circuit was wrong when it said the Georgia Libertarian Party didn’t have standing to challenge a similar Georgia campaign finance law.