Elections Clause

Missouri's emergency application, docketed as No. 26A304 in September 2026, rests on an Elections Clause theory to keep its suspended congressional map in force. The Missouri Supreme Court had rejected that theory the day before and refused a stay of its own ruling.

The filing went first to Justice Brett Kavanaugh as circuit justice for the Eighth Circuit. It paired the clause with the Purcell principle against late changes to election rules, citing 1.2 million votes already cast at the 4 August primary. Any such claim meets Moore v. Harper (2023), in which the Court held that state courts may review a legislature's election rules under state law.

The clause gives states the running of congressional elections, subject to rules Congress sets. Congress has never given a federal agency power to order voter-roll removals, so any federal programme must rely on lawsuits or data-sharing agreements.

That gap shaped Judge Sparkle Sooknanan's ruling on 9 October 2026 that the Justice Department broke the law with its voter-roll programme, which collected state rolls, checked them against a federal citizenship database and demanded removals. The Brennan Center counted 26 of the department's voter-list suits already dismissed. Unless the department wins on appeal, its removal demands have no legal footing in the states the clause puts in charge.