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247. Should Purcell Apply to the Federal Government?

Steve Vladeck · 31 Aug 2026

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Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    The Purcell principle should not apply when the federal government is the defendant.

    Their wordsthere are two independent reasons why Purcell ought never to apply when the federal government is the defendant-and a third reason, for those unpersuaded by the first two, why it ought not to apply in the mail-in ballots cases specifically.

  2. Our reading

    Applying the Purcell principle to the federal government would leave voters without any judicial remedy for last-minute federal election interventions.

    Their wordsApplying Purcell to the federal government would close the doors of every courthouse, leaving voters without any remedy for even the most nefarious, malicious, or otherwise blatantly unlawful last-minute federal interventions in elections.

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