Three opinions from three judges in Poelle v. Florida Secretary of State. From the majority opinion by Judge Rosenbaum:

Michael J. Polelle is a voter in Sarasota County, Florida, who has not registered with a political party. As a result, Florida’s closed system of primary elections prevents him from participating in any political party’s primary.

At the same time, though, the Republican primary has determined the outcome of most Sarasota County elections since the 1960s. So Polelle filed suit claiming Florida’s law puts him to an unconstitutional “Hobson’s choice,” requiring that he either forfeit his right to a meaningful vote or forfeit his right not to associate with political groups and messages. The district court dismissed Polelle’s lawsuit because it concluded he has not suffered an injury that gives him standing to sue in the federal courts and, alternatively, because he failed to state a claim for relief on the merits.

After careful consideration, and with the benefit of oral argument, we agree with the district court’s decision to dismiss Polelle’s case. But we do so after reaching the merits. Polelle has adequately alleged that he suffered an injury in fact, traceable to Defendant-Appellee Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Ron Turner and redressable by the federal courts. As Polelle points out, he has both the right to a meaningful vote and the right not to associate with certain political groups and messages. And Florida’s closed primary burdens those rights.

From Judge Abudu’s concurring opinion (which Judge Rosenbaum joined):

Here, the practical implications of excluding Sarasota County’s independent voters echo similarities to Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461 (1953), in which the Court struck down an electoral scheme for primary elections which systematically excluded Black voters. The Court reasoned that “the Democratic primary and the general election . . . [became] no more than the perfunctory ratifiers of the choice that has already been made in [] elections from which [African-Americans] have been excluded.” Id. at 469. While racial animus drove the unlawful tactics in Terry, closed primary schemes could become just another proxy for the exclusion of populations that might upend the political dominance of one party over other political voices. Thus, the concern about outsiders influencing partisan primary elections could become a more covert excuse for electoral exclusion. Without any available legal remedies, these “outlier” voters are politically silenced.

The Supreme Court, in United States v. Classic, stated:

we cannot close our eyes to the fact . . . that the practical influence of the choice of candidates at the primary may be so great as to affect profoundly the choice at the general election even though there is no effective legal prohibition upon the rejection at the election of the choice made at the primary and may thus operate to deprive the voter of his constitutional right of choice. 313 U.S. at 319.

We, too, should not ignore this truth in Sarasota County.

(This opinion does not engage with Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut (1986) and the rights of political parties in cases that postdate Terry v. Adams and do not involve race, but the majority opinion mentions Tashjian in several places.)

And from Judge Tjoflat, concurring in part and dissenting in part:

Professor emeritus of law Michael Polelle sued Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd and Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Ron Turner, challenging Florida’s closed-primary system. Polelle alleged that, as a No Party Affiliation voter, the system “suppress[ed] . . . his primary vote in selecting political candidates” and thus violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. But Polelle never explained how a court ruling would secure him the
vote he sought. Instead, he asked the District Court to enjoin the system altogether.

Courts do not wield the Constitution as a blunt instrument to level the political playing field. We resolve only concrete “Cases” or “Controversies.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. The District Court correctly held that Polelle lacked standing.

The Majority disagrees. It does so by distorting two funda mental limits on judicial power. First, the Majority reframes Polelle’s political dissatisfaction as a legally cognizable injury. It is not. Second, the Majority dilutes the redressability requirement of standing by proposing an injunction that Polelle never requested and that courts have no authority to issue. Under binding precedent, Polelle lacks standing. Because the Majority says otherwise, I respectfully dissent.