Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20a66_new_m6io.pdf
Page Number: 8

Cite as:  592 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

then devise plans to implement that late-breaking injunc-
tion, and then determine as necessary how best to inform 
voters, as well as state and local election officials and vol-
unteers,  about  those  last-minute changes.   It  is  one  thing 
for state legislatures to alter their own election rules in the 
late  innings  and  to  bear  the  responsibility  for  any  unin-
tended consequences.  It is quite another thing for a federal 
district court to swoop in and alter carefully considered and 
democratically  enacted  state  election  rules  when  an  elec-
tion is imminent. 
  That  important  principle  of  judicial  restraint  not  only 
prevents voter confusion but also prevents election admin-
istrator confusion—and thereby protects the State’s inter-
est  in  running  an  orderly,  efficient  election  and  in  giving 
citizens (including the losing candidates and their support-
ers) confidence in the fairness of the election.  See Purcell, 
549 U. S., at 4–5; Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 
553 U. S. 181, 197 (2008) (plurality opinion).  The principle 
also discourages last-minute litigation and instead encour-
ages litigants to bring any substantial challenges to election 
rules ahead of time, in the ordinary litigation process.  For 
those reasons, among others, this Court has regularly cau-
tioned that a federal court’s last-minute interference with 
state election laws is ordinarily inappropriate.   
  In this case, however, just six weeks before the November 
election and after absentee voting had already begun, the 
District Court ordered several changes to Wisconsin’s elec-
tion laws, including a change to Wisconsin’s deadline for re-
ceipt of absentee ballots.  Although the District Court’s or-
der  was  well  intentioned  and  thorough,  it  nonetheless 
contravened this Court’s longstanding precedents by usurp-
ing  the  proper  role  of  the  state  legislature  and  rewriting 
state election laws in the period close to an election. 
  Applicants retort that the Purcell principle precludes an 
appellate  court—such  as  the  Seventh  Circuit  here—from 
overturning a district court’s injunction of a state election