By: Derek Hawkins//August 8, 2017//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Patrick Harlan, et al. v. Charles W. Scholz, Chairman, Illinois State Board of Elections, et al.
Case No.: 16-3547; 16-3597
Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and RIPPLE and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Fourth Amendment Violation – Voting Registration
This is a case of wait‐and‐hurry‐up, rather than its more familiar cousin, hurry‐up‐and‐wait. With just two and a half months before the November 2016 general election, Patrick Harlan, the Republican Party’s candidate for an Illinois congressional seat, and the Crawford County (IL) Republican Central Committee, filed this lawsuit and promptly sought a preliminary injunction against the implementation of a state law that allows voters to register and vote on Election Day itself. Generally speaking, the law gives more options for same‐day registration and voting for residents of counties with populations of 100,000 or more than it does for those who live in smaller counties. The plaintiffs contended that the difference violated their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The district court agreed with them and issued the injunction; this court granted a stay of that injunction. We now vacate the preliminary injunction altogether.
Vacated and Remanded