SCOTUS To Decide Candidates’ Ability To Contest Election Laws

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up a case involving questions surrounding federal candidate litigation of state election regulations.

Known as Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections, the case offers the nation’s highest court with the opportunity to provide a definitive ruling on the issue of whether a federal candidate who has demonstrated substantiated factual allegations has standing to challenge state-enacted election laws and rules. As The Federalist previously reported, “Standing has been a contentious issue in election litigation” and was at the “forefront of several prominent lawsuits filed contesting the 2020 presidential election cycle, as well as a case involving a challenge to then-President Biden’s ‘Bidenbucks‘ executive order.”

The decision to grant “cert” in the case means at least four justices agreed to bring the matter before the full court for consideration, as required by SCOTUS rules.

The origins of the Bost case date back to May 2022, when Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and two other Republicans identified as presidential elector nominees filed a lawsuit against the Illinois State Board of Elections and the Board’s executive director, Bernadette Matthews. The suit specifically challenged the legality of a state law authorizing the acceptance of voters’ mail-in ballots up to two weeks after Election Day.

Plaintiffs’ lawsuit was subsequently dismissed by a federal district court judge and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, both of which claimed challengers lacked standing to bring the case. With nowhere left to go, Bost and his fellow plaintiffs appealed to SCOTUS, asking the high court to address the “sole question” of whether they, “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.”

In a statement to The Federalist responding to SCOTUS’s decision to hear the case, Judicial Watch’s Russ Nobile, who represented plaintiffs in the case, praised the justices for agreeing to clear up “a lot of [the] inconsistency over when federal courts are open to hear candidate challenges to election procedures.”

“We are very pleased the Supreme Court will hear Congressman Bost’s case,” Nobile said. “Federal courts can’t be open to hear some candidates’ challenges but not for other candidates. It promotes confidence in our elections when federal courts hear (and even reject) challenges to election procedures.”

A date for oral arguments before the high court has not been announced as of publication.