Supreme Court Expands Access to Justice in Election Challenges

In a surprisingly sweeping opinion issued Wednesday, a five-justice majority in Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections held that all candidates have standing to challenge rules governing vote counting in elections. The vote was 7-2 in favor of Bost, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, agreeing with the result but not the reasoning. The majority adopted Bost's argument that candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in election rules regardless of whether those rules harm their campaigns. As Justice Roberts stated, a candidate's interest in the electoral process is fundamentally different from that of the general public. An unfair election, he noted, 'affects those who compete for the support of the people in a different way than it affects the people who lend their support.' Roberts justified the majority's stance by citing pragmatic concerns: delaying post-election challenges risks destabilizing outcomes. He quoted Justice Antonin Scalia's 2000 Bush v. Gore remark: 'Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires.' Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined in dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, argued the majority's stance blurred traditional standing rules, comparing candidate claims to invalidated 'citizen' and 'taxpayer' standing. She emphasized that 'litigants may not sue based only on an asserted right to have the Government act in accordance with law.' The ruling represents a significant expansion of access to justice in election-related disputes and ensures that candidates can challenge potentially unfair election procedures before votes are counted.