## Facts

- Ohio’s Secretary of State administered a statewide voter-registration database intended to “match” new registrants’ information against motor vehicle and, when applicable, Social Security records under § 303 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA).
- Ohio’s matching process could flag voter-registration entries as “non-matching” when the registrant’s information did not correspond with the referenced databases.
- The Ohio Republican Party and associated plaintiffs alleged the Secretary initially provided county boards of elections with lists of non-matching registrants but later stopped providing those lists in a usable form.
- Plaintiffs contended that without access to match-failure information, county boards could not verify voter-registration accuracy as HAVA § 303 contemplated.
- In late September 2008, shortly before the general election, plaintiffs filed suit in federal district court asserting, among other claims, that the Secretary’s practices violated HAVA § 303.
- The district court granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) compelling the Secretary to take affirmative steps to bring the database practices into compliance and to provide county election officials non-matching registrant information.
- A Sixth Circuit panel stayed the TRO, but the Sixth Circuit took the case en banc, vacated the panel stay, and reinstated the TRO while the election approached.

## Issues

1. Whether private plaintiffs had a cognizable federal cause of action to seek injunctive relief enforcing HAVA § 303’s database “matching” obligations against the Secretary of State.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion by issuing a TRO that compelled election-administration changes shortly before a federal general election.

## Decision

- The en banc Sixth Circuit vacated the panel’s stay and denied the Secretary’s request to stay or vacate the district court’s TRO.
- The court left the TRO in effect, requiring the Secretary to take additional steps to implement HAVA § 303 matching and to provide county boards with information about registrations that failed the matching process.
- The court concluded, in the emergency posture, that the district court’s TRO was within its equitable discretion based on the plaintiffs’ showing on the merits and harms.

## Legal Principles

- Emergency injunctive relief in election cases turns on traditional equitable considerations, including likelihood of success (or serious questions on the merits), irreparable injury, balance of harms, and the public interest.
- Federal courts may be asked to enforce federal election-administration duties against state officials when plaintiffs plausibly establish federal jurisdiction and an enforceable obligation under the statute.
- Where plaintiffs claim a state is not implementing federally required voter-registration database functions, a court may order interim relief compelling specific administrative steps if the equitable factors support it.
- The case presented a live dispute about whether HAVA § 303 is privately enforceable through mechanisms such as 42 U.S.C. § 1983 or an implied right of action, an issue that directly affected the plaintiffs’ likelihood of success.

## Conclusion

The en banc Sixth Circuit reinstated and preserved a TRO requiring Ohio’s Secretary of State to take specified actions related to HAVA § 303 voter-registration database matching and to provide county election boards match-failure information, holding that the district court’s emergency injunctive order was not an abuse of discretion given the plaintiffs’ preliminary showing and the asserted risks to lawful election administration.


Ohio Republican Party v. Brunner, 544 F.3d 711 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc)