Democratic National Committee v. Republican National Committee Malone, Intervenor

Background

An individual Ohio voter intervened in a dispute after Republican officials in Ohio, working with the Republican National Committee, compiled a list of 35,000 names. She said the Committee threatened to violate a consent decree by challenging voters on that list and argued those challenges would jeopardize her right to vote and the rights of other minority voters. A District Court found a threatened violation and issued an injunction (a court order stopping the challenges). A divided panel of the Court of Appeals had earlier denied a stay, but the full appeals court later agreed to rehear the matter and issued an en banc order that stayed the injunction.

Reasoning

The voter then asked Justice Souter, acting as the Circuit Justice for the Third Circuit, to block the appeals-court en banc order and effectively reinstate the District Court’s injunction while appeals continue. She later filed a pleading saying she had already voted without being challenged. Considering those facts, Justice Souter declined to send the request to the full Court and denied her emergency application, noting the circumstances and the voter’s disclosure that she had voted without challenge.

Real world impact

The immediate result is procedural: the en banc stay continues to block the District Court’s injunction, so the requested restraining order is not in force now. Because the intervenor already voted without challenge, the urgent need for relief was reduced. The broader dispute over challenges to names on the 35,000-person list and the risk to minority voters will still be decided later by the full appeals process and is not resolved by this short order.