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Federal appeals court won't mess with judge's injunction stopping voting registration law • Daily Montanan [1]

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Date: 2024-05-31  

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said that while it will put a challenge to one of Montana’s voting laws on a expedited, or rushed, schedule, it refused to touch federal district court Judge Brian Morris’ decision to enjoin the law for the primary election, slated for Tuesday.

At issue is House Bill 892, which was passed during the 2023 session and required voters to declare if they were registered at another location, or face criminal penalties for not disclosing it.

Attorneys for several groups challenging the law argued before Morris that the law was overly vague and that double registration is something that has been historically processed by election workers without the threat of criminal penalties.

Groups that are challenging the measure both in state and federal court have argued that the new criminal penalties have chilled the action of get-out-the-vote and voter registration efforts because they could unwittingly be helping register residents who then would face criminal penalties.

Meanwhile, attorneys for the State of Montana, including Solicitor General Christian Corrigan, have urged the court to override Morris’ injunction, saying that the groups didn’t dispute that double registration was illegal, so the law should be used during the primary election.

However, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit said that the State of Montana failed to demonstrate that it will be irreparably harmed by Morris’ injunction. The Ninth Circuit has placed a hearing on the case for its August calendar, ahead of the general election in November.

Attorneys for the State of Montana had argued that case law said that anytime a court enjoins — or stops — an act passed by a state legislature, there is harm because the will of the people’s representatives is stopped. They also argued that the plaintiffs, which include the Montana Public Interest Research Group and the state’s largest union, the Montana Federation of Public Employees, had failed to prove they will likely be successful in federal court, rather that they had merely just raised “substantial questions.”

However, the three-judge panel did not address those arguments, and instead said that the state’s attorneys had failed to prove they will be damaged during the primary election.

The groups challenging the voter laws have not argued that double-registration isn’t a problem or shouldn’t be done, rather they’ve argued that House Bill 892 was vaguely written so that residents or groups could accidentally fall prey to the law, and that criminal penalties, rather than civil penalties, are an incorrect punishment.

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/05/31/federal-appeals-court-wont-mess-with-judges-injunction-stopping-voting-registration-law/

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