In the Jacksonville racial gerrymandering case that Harvard Law School’s Election Law Clinic is litigating, the Eleventh Circuit just denied the city’s effort to stay the district court’s decision striking down seven city council districts. This means that Jacksonville will have new — lawful — districts in time for its 2023 municipal election. The Eleventh Circuit ruling is notable for its determination that five months before an election (when the district court issued its decision) is outside the window in which Purcell applies. The Eleventh Circuit ruling also relied on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Rose v. Raffensberger, rejecting a defendant’s Purcell argument where the defendant had previously represented that there was enough time to implement changes if the plaintiffs prevailed. Here too, as in Rose, Jacksonville initially agreed that a new district map would be feasible if it was implemented by December 16 — only to turn around on appeal and argue for a different timetable. Thanks to Rose and now this ruling, these kinds of ambushes by defendants should no longer succeed.

In League of Women Voters of Florida, we found an injunction to be within Purcell’s “outer bounds” because it was issued while local elections were ongoing, voter registration (which was implicated by the injunction) had begun, and the next statewide election was less than four months away. Id. Here, the district court issued its injunction three months prior to the candidate qualifying period1 and five months prior to the elections for a single county. Applying Purcell to this case would extend the “eve of an election” farther than we have before.

Our decision not to further those outer bounds—at least, not in this case—is bolstered by Rose v. Raffensperger. . . . [Defendants] clearly stated as far back as July 1, 2022, that they would be able to conduct the March 2023 elections if they had maps in place by December 16, 2022. Indeed, the entire schedule on which the district court proceeded was developed with Appellants, working backwards from the date they provided, and the final schedule was accepted “without caveat.” Given Appellants’ position that the election can be conducted on the schedule they made collaboratively with the district court and Appellees, we do not believe Purcell applies here.

And, finally, we find Purcell’s heightened standard is not appropriate because the district court found the primary reason for applying that standard—risk of voter confusion—to be lacking. See Purcell, 549 U.S. at 4–5. Indeed, after conducting an extensive analysis, and recognizing courts should be reluctant to issue injunctions affecting county elections, the district court concluded that Appellants did not show “any substantial risk of harm, confusion, or disruption in the March 2023 election.” We find this determination was not clearly erroneous.