CopyPublished | Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
...but it reasoned that the Secretary is responsible for ballot order because she is
Florida’s “chief election officer.” And although Florida law tasks the nonparty
Supervisors with placing candidates on the ballot in the correct order, Fla. Stat.
§ 99.121, the district court ruled that relief against the Secretary could redress the
voters’ and organizations’ injuries.
On the merits, the district court ruled that the law is unconstitutional under
the approach established in Ander...
...f the
Secretary, with printing the names of candidates on ballots in the order prescribed
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by the ballot statute. Fla. Stat. § 99.121 (“The names of [candidates] shall be
printed by the supervisor of elections upon the ballot in their proper place as
provided by law.”)....
...rely on the Secretary’s general
election authority to establish traceability. See id. at 1298–1300. Florida law
expressly gives a different, independent official control over the order in which
candidates appear on the ballot. See Fla. Stat. §
99.121.
Because the Secretary will not cause any injury the voters and organizations
might suffer, relief against her will not redress that injury—either “directly or
indirectly.” See Lewis,
944 F.3d at 1301 (internal quotation marks omitted)....
...The Supervisors are obliged
under state law to continue printing candidates’ names “upon the ballot in their
proper place as provided by law” regardless of what a federal court might say in an
action that does not involve them. Fla. Stat. § 99.121....
...lso challenge a law
by suing the legislators who enacted it instead of the officials who execute it.
Although in many cases the same official will both make and execute a challenged
regulation, that arrangement is not present here. See Fla. Stat. § 99.121.
The partial dissent also contends that an injunction forbidding the Secretary
to provide the Supervisors with any instructions about ballot order would likely
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provide redress, Dissenting Op. at 80–81, 88, but we again do not see how. Florida
law already directs the Supervisors to place candidates on the ballot in the order
“provided by law,” Fla. Stat. § 99.121—that is, in the order prescribed by the ballot
statute, see id....
...§
98.015(3).
Most relevant here, county election supervisors print the ballots that voters
use. Before a general election, the Department of State certifies to each county
election supervisor the names of the candidates running for office that are to appear
on ballots in that county. Id. §
99.121....
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