Would using poll watchers to hold down voter turnout from opposing party in battleground areas be illegal? I have heard something in the news about 50,000 poll watchers being sent by a specific political party that has received fewer votes in most of the presidential elections since 1990 and received almost ten million fewer votes in a House midterm election with historic turnout from its opponents two years ago. I am NOT going to name it because it is more powerful without the name. Let's say that in 2024, this party has lost the midterms. They want to send poll watchers out to heavily populated areas in competitive/battleground states that vote heavily against them in order to swing the Electoral College in their candidate's favor. Would abusing these poll watchers in order to manipulate electoral outcomes be illegal? Note: I am NOT speculating on anything. This is just a hypothetical. This is a political and legal question about the legality of trying to restrict voting. This does not just involve voter ID laws. It is many things together.
Each state has its own election laws, so you will get 50 different answers depending on what state you are interested in (perhaps 49, since Washington doesn't have polling places - depends on what you mean by &quot;poll watcher&quot;). This page is a starter list of legal resources. This page starts you on deconstructing this notion of &quot;poll watcher&quot;. Colorado is one state that explicitly allows partisan observers, here are the rules. No person is compelled to be an observer, so I don't understand who you think might be abusing a poll watcher. Perhaps you are referring to the possibility that an election official will prevent an observer from doing their job. Or perhaps you are thinking that being a poll watcher abuses the intent of some law. Whatever you have in mind, there are laws in each state that say what is allowed and what is forbidden, so you have to address this at a local level. No state has a requirement that observers must come from or swear allegiance to the majority party of that polling jurisdiction (e.g. county, or precinct). Any attempt by election officials, or anyone else, to block observers from the minority party would be rebuffed by the courts. The courts will not attempt to divine inner motivations for sending an observer. Most states allow partisan observers. Michigan distinguishes &quot;challengers&quot; and &quot;poll watchers&quot;, and there are distinct rules and powers for the two sets. A crucial difference is that a watcher cannot legally challenge a claimed right to vote or a precinct board action, but a challenger can. There are rules of conduct imposed on both kinds of observers, one of them being that you cannot challenge a voter for the purpose of annoying or delaying the voter. This is a misdemeanor (a crime) under MCL 168.727, and as a criminal prohibition, the state would have to prove intent beyond reasonable doubt. Blog posts by the observer might provide sufficient evidence, but speculation by the majority party would not.
In an instant run-off, there are multiple rounds of voting (two, in this case). In the first round, everyone voted for their preferred candidate. In the second round, Jane's voters still vote for Jane, Joe's voters still vote for Joe, and John's voters vote for either Jane or Joe depending on their preferences. So everyone gets a vote in every round. To make an argument against this, you'd have to explain why this &quot;instant system&quot; is unconstitutional while conventional run-off elections, in which everyone votes again on a later day, are constitutional. (Some states use this system if no candidate meets a 50% threshold; for example, the special Senate election in Mississippi recently ended with a run-off.) The only real distinction between these two systems is that Jane's and Joe's voters can't change their minds between the two rounds of voting. So-called &quot;jungle primaries&quot; used in California and Washington effectively work on the same two-round structure, and have been found to be constitutional. If you want some legal precedent, in 2009 the Minnesota Supreme Court specifically refuted this argument in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. City of Minneapolis (bolding mine): The central premise of appellants' unequal weighting argument is that in the second round, first-choice votes cast for continuing candidates were exhausted in the first round and have no further opportunity to affect the election. Appellants claim that, in contrast, voters who cast their first-choice vote for the eliminated candidate get a second chance to influence the election by having their second-choice votes, for a different candidate, counted in the second round. Appellants assert that the same is true in subsequent rounds—voters for continuing candidates have exhausted their ability to affect the election, while voters who had selected the next eliminated candidate get yet another opportunity, as their next choice is counted. Like the district court, we reject the central premise of appellants' unequal weighting argument: that the vote for a continuing candidate is exhausted in the first round in which it is exercised and then is not counted and is of no effect in subsequent rounds. On the contrary, the vote for a continuing candidate is carried forward and counted again in the next round. Just because the vote is not counted for a different candidate in the new round (as is the vote originally cast for an eliminated candidate), does not mean that the ballot was exhausted, that the vote for the continuing candidate is not counted in the subsequent rounds, or that the voter has lost the ability to affect the outcome of the election. See Stephenson v. Ann Arbor Bd. of Canvassers, No. 75-10166 AW (Mich.Cir.Ct. Nov. 1975) (rejecting a claim that an IRV system for election of mayor gave more weight to votes of some voters than others because those who voted for an eliminated candidate had their second choice counted while the second choice of voters whose candidate remained in the race were not counted). Indeed, it is only because votes for continuing candidates are carried forward and combined with subsequent-choice votes of voters for eliminated candidates that any candidate can eventually win. Moreover, this aspect of the IRV methodology is directly analogous to the pattern of voting in a primary/general election system. In a nonpartisan primary election, each voter's vote counts in determining which two candidates survive to reach the general election. In essence, those primary votes are the voters' first-choice ranking of the candidates. As a result of the primary, all but the top two candidates are eliminated. Then, in the general election, voters who voted for candidates eliminated in the primary are allowed to cast another ballot, which necessarily will be for a different candidate-presumably, their second choice. This is no different than the counting of the second-choice votes of voters for eliminated candidates in instant runoff voting. At the same time, in the general election, voters who voted in the primary for either of the two surviving candidates are allowed to vote again, and they are most likely to vote again for their choice in the primary (unless, perhaps, they were voting strategically in the primary and did not vote for their actual first choice in an effort to advance a weaker opponent for their first choice to the general election). This is the equivalent of the continuing effect of the first-choice votes for continuing candidates in instant runoff. A vote in the general election still counts and affects the election, even though it is for the same candidate selected in the primary. Appellants attempt to distinguish the primary/general election system on the basis that those elections are separate, independent events, but the effect in terms of the counting of votes is the same.
The relevant part of the 22nd amendment to the US constitution says: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once. The question is dues &quot;more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President&quot; mean &quot;more than two years of any single term ...&quot; or &quot;more than two years of any and all such terms taken together&quot;. The former is closer to the plain meaning of the text, but the latter is almost surely what Congress intended, given the history of the 22nd. There is no case law, because there is no case in which a person has been elected VP and become president in two or more different terms. Indeed there is no case of a person who, having become president on the death or resignation of a president, then ran again as VP. There is no telling how a court would rule in such a situation, but I rather suspect that the 10-year limit interpretation would be upheld.
A US citizen who resides abroad can register to vote in federal elections in the last state or territory where they resided in the US. So in your example, the US citizen who was resident in Puerto Rico, and who moves to Canada without first residing in any other state or territory, would register to vote in Puerto Rico. Since he is registered to vote in Puerto Rico, he does not vote in an election for choosing presidential electors since Puerto Rico doesn't have any presidential electors. Only the 50 states and DC have presidential electors, and each of them chooses the electors based on elections by people registered to vote in that state (or DC), so he would have to be registered to vote in some particular state or in DC to participate in an election for choosing presidential electors, but he does not qualify to register to vote in any of the states or DC, because he was not resident there last. Yes, US citizens who are neighbors in Vancouver, Canada, one of whom is a former New Yorker and the other of whom is a former Puerto Rican, would be registered to vote in two places (one in New York and the other in Puerto Rico). They would get two different ballots, and may even have different dates for elections (for elections that are not held on the November election day). They would have different offices to vote for, and, in the case of the ballot for the November election in a presidential election year, the New York ballot would contain an election for a slate of presidential electors, while the Puerto Rico ballot would not.
(The original title of your question suggested you might think that federal circuit precedent binds state courts: it generally does not, even on matters of federal law.) But regardless, Congress would not be able to legislatively lower the constitutional floor. If a certain police act is prohibited by the Constitution, Congress cannot legislatively allow that act, whether in a single state or uniformly across all states. That means that if the Fifth Circuit has decided that the use of some new investigatory tool is a search under the Fourth Amendment, no law that Congress passes could affect that holding. When congress creates laws that result in different effects for different people (e.g. people in Texas vs. people in Florida, as in your hypothetical), the distinction must be rationally related to a legitimate government purpose. Many of the enumerated powers allow for local distinction, some prohibit it. Some examples where Congress has distinguished between states include: localized agricultural programs, time zones, voting rights protections, and various others listed in ohwilleke's review. Some distinctions between states could also intrude on principles of federalism and state sovereignty (e.g. the Supreme Court has said that the Voting Right Act does this). Maybe I am unimaginative, but I cannot think of a legitimate federal government purpose that would call for the powers that police have against the people to vary from state to state. Any such variation would have to come from the states themselves: from their state constitutions, or legislative choices to provide heightened protections. Discord between circuits is problematic (see a list of examples of existing splits), and this is why the Supreme Court of the United States will often hear an appeal where there is a circuit split on a question of constitutional rights.
There seems to be no current applicable prohibition state law in Iowa in Iowa Code 39A, the Election Misconduct and Penalties Act. It is also not at all clear that precinct caucuses count as "elections" as applicable to the sections with criminal prohibitions (the precinct caucus does not appear to constitute a "primary election" under Iowa law).
Legally you face no problem. The section 66A of the Indian IT Act, which used to be previously misused for penalizing anyone who dared insult a politician, has been struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of India. But the police could still detain you for 48 hours (legally) without giving any grounds; they are required to do that, but the police are seldom held accountable. The supporters of the said politician can vandalize your home and office without fear of legal action. I am not a lawyer. Whatever is posted above is my opinion and data that I believe to be true to the best of my knowledge and resources available to me. Please contact a lawyer for professional advice.
Is blocking certain people while allowing everybody else to view some content discrimination Yes. and violate anti-discrimination laws Probably not, at least in the US. There is no federal law prohibiting "discrimination" in general. There are specific laws regarding discrimination against certain groups in certain contexts. They would probably not apply to an individual determining who is allowed to view their social media posts. That said, there are some specific contexts where this might be illegal. They would generally involve non-personal use of the account. The courts recently ruled that Donald Trump may not block people on his Twitter account, because he's using it in an official presidential capacity rather than just his individual capacity. Also, racial discrimination in housing is illegal, so if you're selling your house and you block all black people from viewing your house photos, that would probably be illegal as well. Also is not being able to consume information available on a public platform a violation against right to freedom. I'm not sure what you think a "right to freedom" would entail. But I don't think you have the right to demand that a person allow you to access their social media accounts.