## Facts

- Blind registered voters in Michigan, representing a certified class, alleged they could not independently read or mark paper ballots.
- Michigan election law allowed voters who, due to blindness or inability to read or write, could not mark a ballot to receive assistance from a person of the voter’s choice (subject to statutory limits).
- Plaintiffs claimed this assistance system forced disclosure of their ballot selections to a helper, denying them ballot secrecy on equal terms with sighted voters.
- Plaintiffs alleged commercially available, low-cost alternatives (e.g., braille overlays/templates, recorded audio, telephone-based systems) would permit unassisted ballot marking.
- Plaintiffs sued the Michigan Secretary of State in her official capacity for prospective injunctive relief under Title II of the ADA and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
- The district court dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim; plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Eleventh Amendment barred an official-capacity suit seeking prospective injunctive relief against the Secretary of State, or whether the action fell within the Ex parte Young exception.
2. Whether Michigan’s reliance on third-party ballot-marking assistance for blind voters, without providing unassisted voting technology, plausibly violated Title II of the ADA or § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

## Decision

- The court held Eleventh Amendment immunity did not bar the case because it sought prospective relief against a state official for an alleged ongoing violation of federal law under Ex parte Young.
- The court affirmed the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal on the merits.
- The court concluded the complaint did not plausibly allege that Michigan denied blind voters a benefit or right guaranteed by the ADA or the Rehabilitation Act.
- The court treated Michigan’s long-standing statutory authorization of voter-selected assistance as a permissible accommodation and as relevant to the scope of any asserted state-law secrecy interest.

## Legal Principles

- Under Ex parte Young, a plaintiff may sue a state official in an official capacity for prospective injunctive relief to stop an ongoing violation of federal law; such relief is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment.
- Title II of the ADA and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act require meaningful access to public programs and reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities, but they do not require identical participation experiences or adoption of every potentially beneficial technology.
- In assessing whether disability laws require additional voting accommodations, courts may consider the statutory context of federal voting-access statutes that contemplate assistance for voters with disabilities.
- Where state law provides an established method for assisted voting and there is no clearly established state-law entitlement to fully unassisted secret voting in the asserted circumstances, failure to provide independent voting technology does not, without more, state an ADA or Rehabilitation Act violation.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit allowed the suit to proceed past Eleventh Amendment immunity under Ex parte Young but affirmed dismissal because Michigan’s voter-chosen assistance system provided access to voting and did not plausibly deny blind voters rights secured by the ADA or the Rehabilitation Act, even if unassisted technologies were available.


Nelson v. Miller, 170 F.3d 641 (6th Cir. 1999)