How did courts and states legally justify election-timing changes during the 2020 pandemic?
Executive summary
States and courts justified election-timing and procedural changes in 2020 by pointing to existing state emergency powers, specific state statutes and regulations governing election administration, and the federal law that fixes the date for federal general elections—while courts served as arbiters where authority was ambiguous or contested [1] [2] [3]. The result was a patchwork of executive orders, state legislative fixes, and judicial rulings that expanded mail and early voting, postponed primaries in some states, and limited postponements for federal Election Day absent Congressional action [4] [5] [2].
1. Emergency powers and state statutes as the immediate legal rationale
Governors and state election officials commonly invoked broad emergency powers or flexible provisions of state election law to postpone or reschedule primaries and to modify deadlines, arguing that public-health imperatives justified temporary departures from ordinary timelines; Louisiana and several other states explicitly used executive authority to push back presidential primaries in spring 2020 [1] [6]. Where legislatures acted, they often passed statutes to expand absentee voting, extend early-voting windows, or require notice procedures for polling-place consolidation—measures adopted by diverse states to ease access during the pandemic [4] [7].
2. Federal limits and the special status of the November general election
Federal law sets a uniform date for congressional and presidential elections—the Tuesday after the first Monday in November—and that statutory framework, together with constitutional considerations, meant that moving the November general election would require Congressional approval, making such postponement legally unlikely and politically fraught [1] [2] [3]. Legal commentators and practitioners thus treated the spring and summer primaries as the principal domain for timing adjustments, while the November date remained essentially sacrosanct under federal law [8].
3. Courts filled gaps where emergency authority or statutes were ambiguous
Where state emergency laws were silent or challenged, judges were asked to decide whether executives or local officials could alter election timing and procedures; courts sometimes refused emergency stays and sometimes authorized temporary relief, producing a flurry of litigation and dozens of emergency rulings across jurisdictions [1] [5]. Courts also resolved disputes over whether county boards could deploy drop boxes or whether absentee-application distribution was lawful—decisions that effectively determined how and when ballots could be cast even when the underlying election date remained unchanged [5] [9].
4. High-volume litigation over mechanics, not just dates
By September 2020 hundreds of election-related suits had been filed, with roughly 250 concerning voting mechanics shaped by COVID-19—questions about absentee eligibility, extended early voting, ballot collection, and signature requirements were often litigated alongside timing disputes [10] [11]. The federal judiciary’s emergency procedures and individual district judges therefore became crucial venues for shaping short-term electoral accommodations, such as expanding early-voting windows or changing drop-off periods [5] [11].
5. Examples that illustrate competing legal theories and outcomes
Practical examples show the legal balancing act: Ohio’s public-health official closed polling places and the state shifted to mostly mail voting for a primary, while New York’s governor postponed its primary by executive order—moves justified by safety concerns and precedents for disaster-driven delays [6] [8]. By contrast, Tennessee’s Supreme Court vacated a lower court order that had broadened absentee eligibility for the general election, demonstrating judicial limits on pandemic-based expansions when courts interpret state election law narrowly [12].
6. Political and institutional constraints shaped legal choices
Legislatures, governors, secretaries of state, and courts all operated under political pressures and institutional constraints that informed legal reasoning: some states enacted statutory fixes to codify pandemic practices, others relied on executive orders as faster tools, and courts frequently emphasized statutory text and separation-of-powers principles when rejecting or narrowing changes [4] [13]. Because Congress retains authority to change federal election timing, state actors calibrated changes to avoid a direct collision with federal law and to focus on administrative adjustments that could lawfully be made at the state level [2] [3].