Federal judge dismisses suit seeking to halt certification of Maryland election
A federal judge Wednesday dismissed without prejudice a lawsuit against the Maryland State Board of Elections filed by a right-wing coalition seeking to delegitimize election results across the country.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher said in an opinion filed less than a week away from primary day that plaintiffs United Sovereign Americans, a nonprofit Missouri corporation, and Maryland Election Integrity, a limited liability corporation founded by a South Carolina lawyer, lacked standing.
“Although the company’s mission might theoretically be impeded by the alleged voting violations, the company does not appear to conduct any regular activities for achieving that mission,” Gallagher wrote. “In short, plaintiffs allege no concrete or particularized injury to members of Maryland Election Integrity but simply generalized grievances applicable to the community as a whole. Courts routinely find such grievances insufficient to demonstrate standing to sue.”
The suit filed in March sought an injunction requiring Maryland to “update and keep accurate the voter rolls” and not certify any election because of a number of problems that collectively show that the elections board “has lost control of the voting system. On its website, United Sovereign Americans says Maryland was a testing ground for a host of similar lawsuits.
“Our litigation process, launched in Maryland, brings self-evident facts from official data into federal court and seeks an injunction against the use of provably broken voting systems for administering our elections. We are prepared to file in nine states. Thirteen additional states are preparing evidence. We seek a Supreme Court ruling before the 2024 election,” the group said.
Last month, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown on behalf of the elections board argued in a motion to dismiss that the court does not have the authority to rule over the case, and that the plaintiffs’ complaint does not include enough facts to bring the case to trial.
Gallagher agreed, granting Brown’s motion to dismiss.
“A plaintiff may not invoke federal-court jurisdiction unless he can show a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy,” Gallagher wrote. “A federal court is not a forum for generalized grievances, and the requirement of such a personal stake ensures that courts exercise power that is judicial in nature.”
Brown’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night. An audit of the State Board of Elections conducted by a legislative committee last year did not find widespread fraud or call into question the integrity of any election results.
The plaintiffs were represented by Annapolis-based attorney C. Edward Hartman III, who previously represented former Del. Dan Cox as he sought to change the mail-in ballot process while he was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for governor in 2022. Hartman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.
