Our Work

This April, Wisconsin voters will be asked to vote on two proposed amendments to the Wisconsin Constitution. The two proposed amendments on the April 2, 2024, ballot were introduced in the wake of the 2020 election, when cities across Wisconsin—but most prominently Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine—accepted private grants and consultation services to assist with election administration. This Explainer breaks down the backstory, proposed text, and policy arguments regarding each amendment.

This year, states have stepped into the spotlight. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has focused attention on the state role in defining individual rights, while democracy cases like Moore v. Harper have underscored the important state role in elections. In addition, many high-profile issues are being brought directly to voters through state ballot measures. As state institutions take center stage, state-focused scholarship has never been more timely or important.

In a case challenging an absentee ballot signature matching requirement and a ballot collection restriction, the State Democracy Research Initiative filed an amicus brief on behalf of Professors Richard E. Levy and Stephen R. McAllister urging the Kansas Supreme Court to apply strict scrutiny to the challenged law. In 2024, the Kansas Supreme Court declined to find that there is a fundamental, natural right to vote protected by the state constitution’s Bill of Rights.

This Report surveys and classifies the standards that state courts around the country use to adjudicate state constitutional challenges to restrictive voting laws. This survey found that a majority of states apply a standard more rigorous than federal Anderson-Burdick review.

In a challenge to several restrictive voting statutes, the State Democracy Research Initiative filed an amicus brief arguing that the Montana Constitution requires the court to subject laws that burden the right to vote to close judicial scrutiny. On March 27, 2024, the Montana Supreme Court reaffirmed the state constitutional right to vote and held that the challenged laws were unconstitutional.

Commentary on Moore v. Harper has not yet focused on how the Purcell principle might shape what comes next. Litigants will no doubt soon be arguing that state courts (and potentially other state actors) have “transgress[ed] the ordinary bounds of judicial review” in ways that encroach upon the Elections Clause authority of state legislatures. The destabilizing effect of Moore will depend in substantial part on how the Supreme Court ultimately chooses to distinguish the “ordinary” from the out-of-the-ordinary. But it will also depend on how the Purcell principle is applied (or not applied) to Moore claims. There are no guarantees, but if existing practice is a guide, Purcell should limit the extent to which federal courts countermand the pre-election rulings of state courts.

In recent years, litigation has routinely accompanied elections. To better understand developments in election litigation, we recently completed a survey of election-related lawsuits filed in state and federal courts in 2018, 2020, and 2022.

In a case challenging a Delaware a vote-by-mail statute, the State Democracy Research Initiative argued that the state constitution's commitment to democratic principles counsels in favor of upholding the vote-by-mail statute. The Delaware Supreme Court held that the statute was unconstitutional.

Should state courts apply prevailing federal methodologies? Or, alternatively, does the state context call for different approaches? This Special Issue explores these questions, as well as different ways of thinking about interpretation and the role of state courts more broadly.

Over the past decade, North Carolina’s voter ID requirements have generated substantial controversy—and litigation. This week, the North Carolina Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a challenge to the latest version of the state’s voter ID law.