Manoj Mate has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal). Here is the abstract:

Since Bush v. Gore, scholarship on election law has centered on a theoretical debate between rights-based and structural theory approaches, and the appropriate role and scope of judicial intervention in election law cases. However, these debates have not fully assessed the degree to which the Court’s approach to constitutional structure has fundamentally reshaped election law. Over the past two decades the Court has increasingly emphasized the importance of constitutional structure-based approaches in election law cases. This article analyzes these dynamics and advances a typology of constitutional structure-based approaches applied by the Roberts Court in election law cases. Drawing on scholarship on modalities of interpretation and insights on studies of constitutional structure in constitutional law and election law, I identify and examine three main categories of constitutional structure-based approaches in contemporary election law adjudication: historicist, structuralist, and background structure approaches. The article examines how these approaches are applied through close analysis of key cases involving the scope of congressional and state powers under the Elections Clause, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Voting Rights Act, partisan and racial gerrymandering, and application of the Anderson-Burdick framework in voting rights cases. The Court’s application of structure-based approaches has key implications. First, I argue that this typology of approaches suggests key insights for the proper scope and role of judicial intervention in election law cases. Second, these approaches also have important implications for advancing key structural values and goals related to the operation of democracy. Third, approaches to structure have implications for the nature and scope of protections for voting rights and rights-interest balancing. Finally, the article examines how the Court’s application of approaches to constitutional structure impact models of constitutional governance based on relative centralization and decentralization of power over electoral regulation. The article concludes by considering the implications of structure-based approaches on advancing constitutional and structural values related to elections and the right to vote.