## Facts

- Mountain Village, Colorado, incorporated as a home-rule municipality in January 1995.
- Voters approved a home-rule charter in March 1995.
- Charter § 2.4 permitted certain nonresident real property owners within the town to vote in municipal elections.
- Resident voters filed a putative class action under federal civil-rights theories, alleging the nonresident voting provision diluted resident votes in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
- The district court granted summary judgment for the town on the federal equal-protection claim, finding the provision not irrational or arbitrary, and dismissed remaining state-law claims without prejudice after declining supplemental jurisdiction.
- Residents appealed, presenting only the federal equal-protection challenge to the nonresident voting provision.

## Issues

1. Whether a municipal charter that allows nonresident real property owners to vote in town elections violates the Equal Protection Clause by diluting the votes of resident electors.
2. What level of scrutiny applies when a jurisdiction expands the electorate to include nonresidents tied to the jurisdiction by property ownership.

## Decision

- The Tenth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the town.
- The court applied rational basis review because the provision expanded the franchise rather than denying or restricting resident voting rights.
- The court held the inclusion of nonresident property owners was rationally related to legitimate governmental interests and therefore did not violate equal protection.

## Legal Principles

- Strict scrutiny generally applies to laws that directly deny or restrict the vote of otherwise qualified electors; an expansion of the electorate is typically reviewed for rationality absent a suspect classification or direct deprivation of voting rights.
- Under rational basis review, a voting classification satisfies equal protection if any conceivable legitimate governmental purpose supports it and the classification is rationally related to that purpose.
- A municipality may rationally treat nonresident property owners as having sufficient interests in municipal governance (including taxation and regulation of property) to justify participation in local elections.

## Conclusion

Because the charter provision did not exclude resident voters and was rationally connected to legitimate interests in including property owners affected by municipal decisions, the court held that permitting nonresident landowners to vote did not violate the Equal Protection Clause.


May v. Town of Mountain Village, 132 F.3d 576 (10th Cir. 1997)