National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. East Ramapo…

Background

The plaintiffs alleged that East Ramapo Central School District’s at-large election system denied Black and Latino voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice to the District’s Board of Education. They brought the claim under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. They asked the court to stop future elections under the at-large system and require a ward-based system.

After a bench trial, the court’s May 25, 2020 Decision and Order found that the plaintiffs had proved vote dilution. The court stopped the Board election scheduled for June 9, 2020 and ordered the District to propose a remedial districting plan within thirty days. The District appealed that decision and then filed an emergency motion asking the court to stay, or pause, the May 25 orders while the appeal proceeded.

Legal standard

The court applied four factors for deciding whether to issue a stay pending appeal: the applicant’s likelihood of success, the risk of irreparable harm without a stay, the harm to other interested parties, and the public interest. The court stated that likelihood of success and irreparable harm were the most important factors and that the District, as the party seeking the stay, had the burden of justifying it.

Court’s analysis

Stopping the June 9 election. The District argued that federal courts generally should not stop imminent elections and that it was likely to succeed on appeal concerning the election injunction. The court rejected that argument. It emphasized that the plaintiffs had sought this relief since the case began, that the District had multiple opportunities to challenge it before the trial and decision, and that the District waited until after losing at trial to raise its objections.

The court also found that stopping this election would not create the types of voter confusion and administrative complications involved in the cases cited by the District. The injunction did not change election wording or procedures, require new ballots, or require poll workers to be retrained. It simply meant that votes for Board seats would not be counted. The court stated that restoring the election after the injunction had received publicity could itself create more confusion. It concluded that the District had not shown a likelihood of success on appeal regarding the election injunction.

Districting proposal and further proceedings. The court also concluded that the District had not shown a likelihood of success on appeal regarding the order requiring it to propose a districting system. The court noted that the District had not previously proposed an alternative election system or addressed the plaintiffs’ repeated requests for a ward system. It also relied on a cited case in which a court ordered a municipality to propose a remedial plan dividing the municipality into single-member districts, and the appellate court affirmed that order.

Irreparable harm to the District. The District argued that it would suffer irreparable harm from the costs and diversion of staff and policymakers’ attention, including the need to hire a demographer and prepare proposals within thirty days. The court found these objections too general and vague. It noted that the District had already retained a demographer and political scientist, that redistricting software was available, and that the thirty-day period was reasonable. The court therefore found that the District had not shown irreparable harm.

Harm to plaintiffs and the public interest. The court treated restrictions on the fundamental right to vote as irreparable injury in a vote-dilution case. It rejected the District’s argument that a future special election would prevent substantial harm, reasoning that delay could result in additional elections under the illegal system. The court stated that Black and Latino voters in the District would otherwise remain disenfranchised for at least fifteen years based on the findings in the earlier decision.

The court also found that the public interest favored protecting minority voters’ voting rights. It rejected the District’s argument that the thirty-day deadline unnecessarily burdened the District during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Disposition

Judge Cathy Seibel denied the District’s emergency motion to stay the May 25, 2020 Decision and Order. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion, identified as Document 571. This order decided whether to pause the earlier orders during the appeal; it did not replace the May 25 merits decision finding a Section 2 vote-dilution violation.