Court Opinion

ID: 9813563
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 23:10:02.12569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:29:40.790330
License: Public Domain

RYAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join Judge Rogers in granting the motion to expedite the appeal, consolidating the captioned cases, and staying the orders of the district court in each of the cases, which declared Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 3505.20 unconstitutional and directed that persons appointed as challengers may not be present at the polling places in Ohio for the purpose of challenging the qualifications of voters. I do so, however, solely for the reason that, in my judgment, the plaintiffs have not shown the requisite standing to warrant the injunctive relief granted them by the district courts. By that, I mean that the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that they have suffered any “injury in fact” that is “actual or immi*552nent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 180, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000).
The plaintiffs have pleaded and .the district courts have found a possible chamber of horrors in voting places throughout the state of Ohio based on no evidence whatsoever, save unsubstantiated predictions and speculation. The statute allowing for the presence of challengers at the polling place has been on the books for decades. In neither of the cases before us have the plaintiffs shown that the intimidation, chaos, confusion, “pandemonium,” and inordinate delay they allege will occur tomorrow is “actual or imminent [and] not conjectural or hypothetical.” Id.
The statute authorizing the presence of challengers at the' polling places is presumed to be constitutional. The plaintiffs have offered no evidence that the injury they allege will occur tomorrow, has ever occurred before in an Ohio election or that there has been any threat by the defendants or anyone else that such injury will occur. The “injury” the district courts found that the plaintiffs will suffer tomorrow is wholly speculative, conjectural, and hypothetical.
Quite aside from the presumption of the constitutionality of the statute authorizing the presence of the challengers at the polling places, the people of the State, of Ohio are entitled to anticipate that tomorrow’s election will be conducted in a lawful, orderly, and-suitably expeditious fashion, to preserve every elector’s right to vote. Should the inordinate delay and related horrors the plaintiffs posit become a reality tomorrow, the federal courts will..be open to respond to proof-supported allegations of an unconstitutional burden on Ohio citizens’ right to vote.
I agree that the temporary restraining orders issued by the district courts must be stayed.