# Jacobson v. Florida Secretary of State **Jacobson v. Florida Secretary of State**, No. 19-14552 (11th Cir. Sept. 3, 2020), is the governing federal appellate decision on challenges to state **ballot-order statutes** — and it decided nothing about ballot order. Florida law gives first position on the general-election ballot to the party whose candidate won the last gubernatorial election. Voters and organizations sued, and the district court declared the statute unconstitutional and permanently enjoined the Secretary of State and all 67 county Supervisors of Elections. The Eleventh Circuit **vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction**, on two independent grounds: - **No Article III standing.** No plaintiff proved an injury in fact, and any injury was neither traceable to the Secretary nor redressable by relief against her, because it is the county Supervisors — who were not sued — who actually place candidates on the ballot. - **Nonjusticiable political question.** Relying on [[Rucho v. Common Cause]], the court held the complaint presented a question beyond judicial competence. ## Why it matters Jacobson is the reason a known, measured, state-created advantage has gone unlitigated on the merits: the burden is diffuse, so no voter can show a particularised injury, and the official who writes the rule is not the official who prints the ballot. It is a **remedy problem, not an evidence problem** — see [[Ballot Order Effect]] for the empirical record. Its standing holding may be narrower than it was. In **[[Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections]]** (Jan. 14, 2026) the Supreme Court held 7–2 that *candidates* have standing to challenge election rules before voting begins, a plaintiff class Jacobson's reasoning never addressed. Whether that reopens ballot-order litigation in the Eleventh Circuit is untested. ## See also - [[State Ballot Position Crosswalk]] - [[Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections]] - [[Rucho v. Common Cause]] - [[Political Question Doctrine]]