Eggers v. Evnen

Crista Eggers tried for years to qualify a ballot initiative to de-penalize the use and possession of medical cannabis. As Eggers and Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana sought to qualify for the ballot in 2022, they turned to the ACLU of Nebraska for help challenging a provision of the state constitution that requires a certain threshold of signatures from 38 counties to qualify for the statewide ballot.

Eggers v. Evnen argued current law treats ballot signatures as unequal based on geography, violating the principle of “one person, one vote” that’s protected under the 14th Amendment.  For example, a single Douglas County voter has less than a thousandth of the power of an Arthur County voter in determining whether their county meets its signature threshold.

A district court judge initially issued an order temporarily blocking the enforcement of this provision. A month later, however, the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay on the earlier order, effectively overturning it and upholding the ballot qualification requirement.

Our litigation ended with a split decision in the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that keeps the rule in place on the basis that our equal protection argument did not apply to state ballot initiative processes. One dissenting judge noted that “if the right to vote is fundamental, I see no reason why it should not apply equally to the initiative process at the heart of Nebraska’s electoral and legislative system.”