Right-wing group exempted from voting lie ban by court — and no one else
A federal appeals court has exempted the Minnesota Voters Alliance, a conservative election-integrity group, from Minnesota's election misinformation law ahead of the November midterms.
The Eighth Circuit issued its ruling Thursday, reversing a lower court that had denied the group a preliminary injunction.
Minnesota's law bars anyone from knowingly spreading false information about voting within 60 days of an election if the intent is to stop someone from casting a ballot.
With a 60-day enforcement window opening Sept. 4, the Alliance is now shielded from the law for its entire duration, according to the ruling.
No other advocacy group in the state has a court order protecting it from the law during that window. Any group seeking the same protection would need to file its own lawsuit and win its own injunction before the election.
The three-judge panel included two judges appointed by President Donald Trump and one named by President George W. Bush, the ruling showed.
The two Trump appointees — Judge David Stras, who wrote the opinion, and Judge Jonathan Kobes — provided the decisive votes, the opinion showed. The ruling would have stood without the Bush appointee.
When the Alliance first sued, the district court upheld the law and denied its injunction — but also found that the group's specific speech probably was not covered by the law in the first place, according to MinnPost.
Anoka County Attorney Brad Johnson had filed a counterclaim against the Alliance, but it was placed on hold and never enforced, according to the ruling.
The Alliance had filed suit preemptively, using the dormant counterclaim to establish that it faced a legal threat — and parlayed that into a First Amendment ruling from the appeals court that weakened the law, the court noted.
The Eighth Circuit found the law reaches protected political speech, even when the claims at issue are false.
"Minnesota's law cuts off the 'open and vigorous expression of views' by criminalizing statements about who can vote…," the court wrote. "Like the law in Alvarez, it bans a 'false statement made at any time' and 'in any place.'"
The court acknowledged that the Alliance's statement could be false but protected it as an "opinion."
Minnesota and Anoka County had argued the Alliance's speech was unprotected because it causes the "legally cognizable harm" of preventing voters from casting ballots, the court noted. The court rejected that argument.
"The government cannot endorse one view and criminalize the other without implicating the First Amendment," Judge Stras wrote.
The court said the state had a less restrictive option available — counter speech — and that placing "potential criminal sanctions" in the path of protected speech was among the least tailored approaches the state could have chosen.
Conservative attorney Gabriel Malor wrote on Bluesky that the ruling frees "a conservative group that (falsely) says felons who are out of prison cannot vote" to make that claim through the election.
Minnesota's general election is Nov. 3, with an open U.S. Senate seat, eight House races, and control of the state legislature all on the line.