Andino v. Middleton
The Supreme Court paused most of a lower court's order that had blocked South Carolina from requiring a witness signature on absentee ballots, letting the State enforce the rule during the 2020 election while the appeal continued. The Court carved out a narrow exception: ballots already cast before the stay was issued and received within two days could not be thrown out for lacking a witness signature.
How it got here: A federal district court blocked South Carolina's absentee-ballot witness requirement; South Carolina applied to the Supreme Court to pause that block while appealing to the Fourth Circuit.
The Case in Depth
What happened
South Carolina required absentee voters to have another person witness and sign their ballot. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of voters and advocacy organizations sued, arguing the requirement posed an unreasonable health risk. A federal district court agreed and issued an order blocking the State from enforcing the witness requirement ahead of the November 2020 election.
The question before the Court
Could South Carolina enforce its requirement that absentee ballots be signed by a witness during the COVID-19 pandemic while a lawsuit challenging that requirement played out in the courts?
The Court's answer
Yes, in part — the Court paused most of the district court's order blocking South Carolina's witness requirement, allowing the State to enforce the rule while its appeal moved through the courts. The Court did not, however, allow South Carolina to reject ballots that had already been cast before the stay was issued and were received within two days of the Court's order; those ballots could not be thrown out for lacking a witness signature.
The order is temporary and does not decide whether South Carolina's witness requirement is lawful. The stay remains in effect while the Fourth Circuit hears the case, and if South Carolina later seeks full Supreme Court review, the stay continues until the Court acts.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
South Carolina voters who had already mailed absentee ballots without a witness signature were protected, but going forward voters had to comply with the witness requirement. The order signaled the Court's strong reluctance to let federal judges override state election procedures close to an election — a principle that can affect how voting-rule challenges are timed and litigated.
What changes now
The witness requirement is back in effect for the duration of the 2020 election, except for ballots already cast before the stay and received within two days of the order. The stay remains in place while South Carolina's appeal proceeds in the Fourth Circuit. If South Carolina seeks Supreme Court review (certiorari) and the Court declines, the stay ends automatically; if the Court agrees to hear the case, the stay continues until the Court issues a final ruling.
What this does not decide
The order does not decide whether South Carolina's witness requirement is constitutional or otherwise lawful — that question remains open for the Fourth Circuit and potentially the Supreme Court to resolve. It also does not address absentee-ballot witness requirements in any other state.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh agreed with the Court's partial stay and wrote separately to explain his two reasons. First, states have broad authority during a public-health emergency, and federal courts should not override state decisions in areas requiring medical and scientific expertise. Second, long-standing Supreme Court precedent (Purcell v. Gonzalez) forbids federal courts from changing state election rules close to an election. Both principles, he said, required pausing the district court's injunction.
Dissent in part — Justice Thomas
Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch did not write a separate opinion but noted they would have granted the stay application in full — meaning they would not have included the carve-out protecting ballots already cast before the stay was issued. They disagreed with the majority's decision to partially shield those ballots from the witness requirement.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Justice Kavanaugh, in a concurrence explaining the reasoning behind the Court's order, started with the principle that the Constitution primarily entrusts public health and safety decisions to state officials who are elected and accountable to voters — not to federal judges. When state officials act in areas involving medical and scientific uncertainty, like a pandemic, their decisions deserve especially broad leeway.
- Applying that principle to elections: Kavanaugh reasoned that a state legislature's choice to keep or change election rules in response to COVID-19 ordinarily should not be second-guessed by an unelected federal court, which lacks both the public-health expertise and the democratic accountability to make those calls. The district court's injunction violated this principle.
- Kavanaugh's second reason relied on the well-established rule — rooted in the Court's 2006 decision in Purcell v. Gonzalez — that federal courts should not rewrite state election procedures in the period close to an election. Last-minute judicial changes to voting rules can confuse voters, election officials, and poll workers, creating exactly the kind of disruption courts are supposed to avoid.
- Because the district court had enjoined the witness requirement shortly before the election, it ran afoul of both principles — deference to state public-health decisions and the prohibition on late-breaking judicial rewrites of election rules — giving the Court two independent reasons to step in and pause the injunction.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Purcell v. Gonzalez (549 U. S. 1)
The rule against federal courts changing state election procedures close to an election is reaffirmed and applied.