The Center for Election Confidence (CEC) applauds the Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision today in Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections to overturn the Seventh Circuit, preserving equal access to courts for candidates. The Court adopted CEC’s stated positions on candidate standing.
In 2024 and 2025, CEC submitted amicus curiae briefs at both the certiorari and merits stages in support of the Bost Plaintiffs, arguing that the Seventh Circuit’s standing analysis improperly treated candidates differently from any other plaintiff, severely restricting their access to the courts.
Bost involves an Illinois law requiring election officials to count mail-in ballots received after election day. Prior to the 2024 Election, Congressman Michael Bost and two other political candidates filed a lawsuit challenging the Illinois law on the basis that counting ballots received after election day violates federal law. The district court dismissed the case, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed on the grounds that Plaintiffs lacked standing in effect because Bost had won his previous election and, in the court’s judgment, was likely to win again—a so-called avoiding defeat standard. Plaintiffs petitioned SCOTUS for review on the question of standing.
In its briefs before the Supreme Court, CEC emphasized that candidates and political parties have a direct interest in ensuring election integrity, regardless of whether they can prove a regulation would alter the outcome, and that a “avoiding defeat” rule disregards the Court’s precedent that standing “does not depend on the merits of a claim.”
Moreover, CEC explained that the Seventh Circuit’s “avoiding defeat” standard would bar challenges to election rules by long-shot or minority party candidates, increase toleration of electoral fraud and irregularities by limiting a candidate’s access to courts, and weaken the standing of political parties and organizations to challenge election regulations.
By requiring candidates to show substantial risk of election loss, the Seventh Circuit’s standard would force judges to forecast elections when determining whether a candidate has standing to seek judicial review of the rules governing their election.
In today’s ruling, the Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit’s “avoiding defeat” standard and remanded Bost to lower courts for further proceedings on the merits.
The Court held that candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules governing their elections, regardless of whether a rule may harm their electoral prospects or increases campaign costs. Specifically, the majority reasoned that Candidates have an interest in a fair process, not just in winning—and that the harm to candidates from an unfair election is not common to all members of the public. T The Court’s decision in Bost reaffirms the equal access of candidates to federal courts on par with all other plaintiffs.
The Center for Election Confidence thanks Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen M. Duvernay of Benbrook Law Group for their representation in this matter.