Opinion ID: 2744274
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: New Regulations

Text: The Defendants also assert that the Secretary of State’s new regulations 4 render the case moot on constitutional and prudential grounds. In response, Citizen Center urges us to apply the voluntary-cessation exception. We conclude: ● The new regulations partially moot the case. ● Neither the voluntary-cessation exception nor the prudential mootness doctrine applies.
Citizen Center challenges three types of county balloting practices: (1) use of a unique number or barcode; (2) use of a unique ballot among the ballots cast on a voting machine; and (3) use of a unique ballot within a 4 We analyze the current regulations, which took effect on December 30, 2013. 10 batch. R. vol. 1, at 25, 27-31, 33-34. Generally, an action becomes moot when someone challenges a regulation and it is repealed. Citizens for Responsible Gov’t State Political Action Comm. v. Davidson, 236 F.3d 1174, 1182 (10th Cir. 2000). But, a repeal does not moot the case when the remaining regulations allow continuation of the conduct being challenged. See id. Some of Citizen Center’s challenges became moot with the new regulations. The new regulations address some of the disputed practices by: (1) barring counties from printing ballots with unique numbers or barcodes, and (2) requiring counties to dissociate batch numbers from ballots before final certification of the vote. 8 Colo. Code Regs. §§ 1505-1:4.8.4(a), 1505-1:7.5.8. These regulations moot Citizen Center’s challenges to:
(2) the use of a unique ballot within a batch after final certification of the vote. But the new regulations do not moot the remaining challenges. The clerks point out that the new regulations require counties to print at least ten ballots of each ballot style for each number. Id. § 1505- 1:4.8.4; see Clerks’ Br. at 11. But this requirement does not moot the claims. Though the counties will use ten copies of every ballot style, some ballots may remain traceable because they will be unique among the ballots 11 cast on a single voting machine or within a batch before certification. Therefore, Citizen Center’s challenges are not moot with respect to the use of a unique ballot among the ballots cast on a voting machine and use of a unique ballot within a batch before final certification of the vote.
Citizen Center argues that we should apply the voluntary-cessation exception to the mootness doctrine. Citizen Ctr.’s Reply Br. at 8-11. This exception does not apply. A defendant’s voluntary cessation of a challenged practice rarely moots a federal case because a “‘party should not be able to evade judicial review, or to defeat a judgment, by temporarily altering questionable behavior.’” Unified Sch. Dist. No. 259 v. Disability Rights Ctr. of Kan., 491 F.3d 1143, 1149 (10th Cir. 2007) (quoting City News & Novelty, Inc. v. City of Waukesha, 531 U.S. 278, 284 n.1 (2001)). Nonetheless, a defendant’s voluntary cessation moots a case when a challenged regulation is repealed and the government does not openly express intent to reenact it. Camfield v. City of Okla. City, 248 F.3d 1214, 1223-24 (10th Cir. 2001). But a case is not moot if a challenged regulation is repealed and there are “‘clear showings of reluctant submission [by government actors] and a desire to return to the old ways.’” Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation, 601 F.3d 1096, 1117 (10th Cir. 2010) (alteration in 12 original) (quoting 13C Charles Alan Wright, Arthur M. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3533.6, at 311 (3d ed. 2008)). Citizen Center makes two arguments: (1) The Secretary of State has revised its regulations multiple times during this litigation, allowing emergency regulations to lapse. (2) The clerks have expected some regulations to be “overturned or modified.” Citizen Ctr.’s Reply Br. at 10-11. We reject both arguments. First, the Secretary of State’s revisions do not indicate a desire to return to old ways. With each revision, the Secretary has enacted stricter or substantively similar regulations, and Citizen Center does not suggest that the new regulations will be watered down. 5 Second, the clerks have not threatened to defy the Secretary’s new regulations. Disagreeing with a regulation is not the same as refusing to follow it, especially when the clerks’ ballot plans require approval by the Secretary of State. Thus, the voluntary-cessation exception does not apply and Citizen Center’s challenges are moot with respect to the use of unique numbers and batching after certification of the vote. 5 Although the Secretary of State allowed the emergency regulations to lapse between December 2012 and May 2013, Citizen Center does not claim that any elections took place during that time. See Citizen Ctr.’s Reply Br. at 4. 13
Finally, the clerks urge us to apply the prudential mootness doctrine to the portion of the case that would otherwise survive. Clerks’ Br. at 13. The doctrine of prudential mootness does not apply. A case is prudentially moot if “circumstances [have] changed since the beginning of litigation that forestall any occasion for meaningful relief.” S. Utah Wilderness Alliance v. Smith, 110 F.3d 724, 727 (10th Cir. 1997). We may decline to grant relief when the “government . . . has already changed or is in the process of changing its policies or where it appears that any repeat of the actions in question is otherwise highly unlikely.” Bldg. & Const. Dep’t v. Rockwell Int’l Corp., 7 F.3d 1487, 1492 (10th Cir. 1993). The regulatory changes would not halt the threat of traceable ballots when voters use unique numbers or barcodes and the ballots are unique within a batch prior to final certification of the vote. Thus, a judgment for Citizen Center could provide meaningful relief. In these circumstances, the prudential mootness doctrine does not apply.