Fay v. Merrill

Summary

The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ original-jurisdiction challenge to the Secretary of the State’s COVID-19 absentee-ballot application because a congressional primary is not an “election” within the meaning of the statute authorizing direct Supreme Court review. The court held that the challenge instead belonged in the Superior Court under the statutory procedure governing primary disputes and declined to transfer the action there. The court also stated that election-contest statutes would not provide jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional challenges to the executive order, although it would have had jurisdiction over an allegation that the application failed to follow the order if the statutory jurisdictional basis otherwise existed.