Lyons v. Sec'y of the Commonwealth
| Docket Number | SJC-13307 |
| Decision Date | 30 August 2022 |
| Parties | JAMES LYONS & others v. SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Heard: July 6, 2022.
Civil action commenced in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk on June 23, 2022.
The case was reported by Kafker, J.
Michael Walsh for the plaintiffs.
Adam Horstine, Assistant Attorney General (Anne Sterman, Assistant Attorney General, also present) for the defendant. [1]
The following submitted briefs for amici curiae:
John Paul Moran, pro se. Joseph N. Schneiderman for Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action. [2]
Lisa C. Goodheart, Christine M. Netski, Dylan Sanders, Anthony V. Agudelo, John G. O'Neill, Andrea Studley Knowles Jessica H. Park, Gwen Nolan King, Kenneth C. Thayer, Lon F. Povich Tamara S. Wolfson, David S. Mackey, M. Patrick Moore, Jr., & Clinton R. Prospere for Common Cause Massachusetts & another.
Present: Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, Kafker, Wendlandt, & Georges, JJ.
On June 16, 2022, the Legislature passed "An Act fostering voter opportunities, trust, equity and security" (VOTES act), which expanded opportunities to vote in Massachusetts. St. 2022, c. 92. The VOTES act provided that any qualified voter in Massachusetts, without need for excuse, can vote early, in person or by mail (universal early voting), in primaries and biennial State elections.[3] Id. This expanded early voting options first enacted in 2014 and then further enlarged in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. See St. 2014, c. 111, § 12; St. 2020, c. 115, §§ 6, 7, 10. The VOTES act also made other changes in the Commonwealth's election laws. See St. 2022, c. 92. Six days later, the Governor approved the act, and it went into effect as an emergency law. See St. 2022, c. 92, preamble.
The following day, the plaintiffs, all associated with the Massachusetts Republican party,[4] initiated this action in the county court against the Secretary of the Commonwealth (Secretary), raising facial constitutional challenges to various aspects of the VOTES act, including the universal early voting provisions, and seeking to enjoin the Secretary from putting the act into effect for the September 6, 2022, primary and the November 8, 2022, biennial State election. On June 29, 2022, after the Secretary moved to dismiss the plaintiffs' complaint, the single justice reserved and reported the matter to the full court for decision due, in large part, to the significant time constraints involved, including, most urgently, the requirement in the VOTES act that the Secretary mail applications for early voting ballots to all registered voters by July 23, 2022. See G. L. c. 54, § 25B (a.) (7) (i), as appearing in St. 2022, c. 92, § 10. Thereafter, on July 11, 2022, following briefing[5] and oral argument, the court issued an order entering judgment in the county court for the Secretary on all claims in the plaintiffs' complaint and denying the plaintiffs' request for injunctive relief. As the court further stated, while time constraints dictated the immediate issuance of the order, the underlying reasoning was to follow in due course. We now set forth that reasoning.
The self-professed "heart" of the plaintiffs' complaint is the claim that the universal early voting provisions are facially unconstitutional because, except for in three limited circumstances where "absentee voting" is authorized under art. 45 of the Amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution, art. 105 of the Amendments, the Legislature is prohibited from providing for any form of voting other than in person on the day of the primary or election. We disagree. Voting is a fundamental right, and nothing in art. 45, art. 105, or in other parts of the Constitution cited by the plaintiffs, prohibits the Legislature, which has plenary constitutional powers, including broad powers to regulate the process of elections and even broader powers with respect to primaries, from enhancing voting opportunities. This is particularly true with respect to the universal early voting provisions in the VOTES act, which, in stark contrast to the narrow and discrete absentee-voting provisions of art. 45, enhance voting opportunities equally for all voters.
The plaintiffs also claim that the VOTES act (1) violates the elections clause of the United States Constitution, U.S. Const, art. I, § 4, by allowing municipalities to fill poll worker vacancies in the six weeks leading up to the election without regard to political party affiliation; (2) violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and its State constitutional equivalents by extending the ban on electioneering in and around polling places to the early voting period; (3) violates art. 38 of the Amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution by allowing disabled, overseas, and military voters to cast votes electronically; and (4) arbitrarily and irrationally counts the votes of people who lawfully cast their ballots during the early voting period but die before election day, which the plaintiffs characterize as allowing "dead people to vote." We discern no merit to these claims as well.
In 2014, years before the COVID-19 pandemic and the enactment of the VOTES act, the Legislature passed and the Governor approved "An Act relative to election laws" (2014 voting act), which, among other things, provided for universal early voting in biennial State elections and any municipal election held on the same day, whereby any voter, without excuse, could apply for and vote by mail or vote in person at an early voting location.[6] See St. 2014, c. 111, § 12, inserting G. L. c. 54, § 25B. Voters who applied and chose to vote early by mail would mark their ballot, seal it in an envelope provided for that purpose, execute an affidavit on the envelope, and mail it in a second envelope provided for that purpose in time for it to be received by the city or town clerk before the closing of the polls on election day. See St. 2014, c. 111, § 12, inserting G. L. c. 54, § 25B (b), (e_), (h) . For those who chose to vote early in person, voting was to take place over ten business days preceding a biennial State election. St. 2014, c. 111, § 12, inserting G. L. c. 54, § 25B (c0 . During that period, early voting locations were required to be open during the usual business hours of the city or town clerk, although cities and towns were permitted to provide additional early voting hours, including on weekends. St. 2014, c. 111, § 12, inserting G. L. c. 54, § 25B (d).
Universal early voting under the 2014 voting act did not apply to primaries and was first implemented for the 2016 and then 2018 biennial State elections. See St. 2014, c. 111, § 26. Reportedly, more than twenty percent of voters chose to take advantage of the new voting option during both of those elections.[7]
The adoption of universal early voting in 2014 proved to be prescient when, in 2020, a presidential election year, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. On July 26 of that year, slightly over four months after the pandemic had been declared,[8] the Legislature and Governor, concerned "for the immediate preservation of the public health and convenience," passed and approved an emergency law that further expanded voting opportunities. See St. 2020, c. 115, preamble, "An Act relative to voting options in response to COVID-19" (COVID-19 voting act). Most notably, the act further expanded universal early voting, which already applied to the November 2020 biennial State election by virtue of the 2014 voting act, to the September 2020 primary and city and town elections held before December 31, 2020. See St. 2020, c. 115, §§ 6 (b), 7, 10.
With respect to early mail-in voting, the COVID-19 voting act required the Secretary to mail applications for early voting ballots to all registered voters by July 15, 2020, for the primary and by September 14, 2020, for the biennial State election, rather than waiting for them to request an application. See St. 2020, c. 115, § 6 (d) (1)-(2). It expanded the ways in which early voting ballots could be returned to the city or town clerk by allowing for voters to deliver them in person or place them in a secured municipal drop box. See St. 2020, c. 115, § 6 (h) (1)-(2). And whereas early voting ballots still had to be received from voters before the hour fixed for the closing of polls on the day of the primary or biennial State election, those that were mailed on or before the day of the biennial State election and received within three days after the election (by 5 P..M. on November 6, 2020) would be counted. See St 2020, c. 115, § 6 (h) (3).
The COVID-19 voting act also changed the early in-person voting period from ten business days to fourteen calendar days for the biennial State election (October 17, 2020, through October 30, 2020) and added seven calendar days of early in-person voting for the primary (August 22, 2020, through August 28, 2020). See St. 2020, c. 115, § 7 (b) (1)-(2). In addition to continuing to require early voting locations to be open during the usual business hours of the city or town clerk on weekdays during those periods, the act required them to be open on the weekend days for at least a minimum number of hours determined based on the size of a municipality's electorate. See St. 2020, c. 115, § 7 (c) (1)-(2).
The Secretary reported that for the 2020 biennial State election, forty-two percent of voters chose to vote early by mail, twenty-three percent voted early in person, and thirty-five percent voted in person on election day.[9]
The COVID-19 voting act...
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