- The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld North Carolina's felony-disclosure requirement for candidates in federal elections.
- Siddhanth Sharma had challenged the requirement as an unconstitutional qualification for federal candidates.
- The Appeals Court ordered a trial judge to dismiss as moot Sharma's challenge to a separate law requiring him to disclose his address when registering to vote.
The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a North Carolina law requiring candidates in federal elections to disclose whether they have been convicted of felonies. The court rejected a challenge from a Republican congressional candidate who lost in the March primary.
Appellate judges ordered a trial judge to dismiss as moot the same candidate’s separate challenge to an address-disclosure requirement.
“This state law requires that candidates check a box indicating if they have any felony convictions and then submit a short supplemental form with basic information regarding such convictions and the restoration of citizenship rights. The district court upheld the statute. Because the felony-disclosure requirement falls within the Constitution’s broad grant of authority to the states to regulate elections, we now affirm,” wrote Judge Harvie Wilkinson for a unanimous three-judge appellate panel.
Siddhanth Sharma, “a twenty-seven-year-old convicted felon who currently resides in Wake County,” had full citizenship rights restored on Sept. 3, 2023. He registered to vote two days later and announced plans to run for Congress that same month.
Candidates seeking a political party’s nomination in North Carolina must submit a notice of candidacy, according to the 4th Circuit ruling. The notice form asks prospective candidates whether they ever have been convicted of a felony. Those who check yes must submit a supplemental form listing “the name of the offense, the date of conviction, the date of the restoration of citizenship rights, and the county and state of conviction.”
If the candidate does not complete the form, his name does not appear on the ballot. All votes cast for him are void.
Sharma filed suit against the State Board of Elections in September 2023 before filling out a notice of candidacy. “He challenged the felony-disclosure requirement as violative of the Qualifications Clause of the U.S. Constitution and challenged both the felony-disclosure requirement and an additional address-disclosure requirement as violative of the First Amendment,” Wilkinson wrote.
Chief District Judge Richard Myers dismissed the suit. Myers determined that the felony-disclosure requirement did not amount to an unconstitutional additional qualification for candidates. Nor did it violate the First Amendment.
Myers rejected Sharma’s challenge to the address-disclosure requirement “because his injury was insufficiently particularized,” the 4th Circuit opinion noted. Any chilling effect related to revealing his address was “common to all members of the public.”
Sharma ended up submitting the notice of candidacy with his correct felony history in December 2023.
He finished 12th out of 14 candidates running in March for the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District. Sharma secured 614 votes, or 0.73% of the total.
Wilkinson’s opinion highlighted “the federalist structure by which the Constitution empowers regulation of elections.”
“While state discretion has the potential to lead to nonuniform practices in the methods of selecting federal officers, such flexibility is an intended feature of the Elections Clause, not a flaw,” the 4th Circuit opinion noted.
“The Constitution … reflected this American ethos of state influence over the selection of national representatives. While the states would cede much of their sovereignty to the federal government, they gained certain rights, including the ‘broad power’ to prescribe the ‘Times, Places, and Manner’ of holding federal elections,” Wilkinson explained.
The 4th Circuit opinion emphasized courts’ limited role in considering state-specific rules. “The nuanced balance of congressional and state authority over electoral procedures provides no green light for federal courts to devise preferences of their own,” Wilkinson wrote. “We cannot strain the intent and meaning of state election laws to find constitutional violations where there are none.”
Wilkinson pointed to the “central question” in Sharma’s appeal: “does a requirement for the public disclosure of candidates’ felony histories, which will not appear on the ballot, constitute an impermissible qualification for office?”
“[W]e must answer that question in the negative,” he wrote.
“[T]he felony-disclosure requirement is not a disqualification at all. If prospective candidates possess a felony history, they may still appear on the federal ballot, regardless of whether their full citizenship rights have been restored,” Wilkinson explained.
“Disclosing past histories of lawbreaking in a prospective lawmaker falls within the ambit of permissible safeguards necessary to ‘ensur[e] that elections are “fair and honest,” and “that some sort of order, rather than chaos is to accompany the democratic process,”’” he added.
North Carolina’s law did not violate Sharma’s First Amendment rights, Wilkinson wrote. “The felony-disclosure requirement imposes only the lightest burden on Sharma’s rights. Why? Because the speech this disclosure compels is relatively innocuous. The disclosure does not cover candidates’ personal beliefs, policy preferences, or political affiliations. Sharma remains free to speak as he pleases and on any topic he selects.”
“Here, the state is making already available public information more accessible to voters upon inquiry — an element beneficial to maintaining an educated electorate,” Wilkinson wrote. “Informing and educating voters with relevant information about the candidates is thus a recognized state interest, and the felony disclosure may be viewed as a reasonable assist to that endeavor.”
“The state is using the requirement to emphasize in a modest and restrained manner that lawmaking and lawbreaking are, to put it gently, in tension,” the 4th Circuit opinion continued. “North Carolina is not passing judgment on whether the electorate should ultimately vote for Sharma or indeed for any candidate with a comparable history. The felony-disclosure requirement simply allows voters to reach their own conclusions on a distinction that is, at its core, the very essence of the rule of law.”
Wilkinson explained that Sharma’s concerns about disclosing his address are moot because they will have no impact on future elections.
“Future candidates will not be compelled to reveal their address,” the 4th Circuit opinion explained. “The Board conceded at oral argument that North Carolina will not and cannot mandate that candidates for federal office be registered voters because such a requirement would constitute an unconstitutional additional qualification on officeholding.”
“Thus any candidate who objects to providing his address may simply cancel his voter registration or avoid registering altogether. If a candidate still voluntarily enters or remains within the voter-search database, he cannot reasonably claim that such speech was compelled, given that he had a reasonable and easily accessible alternative. Any potential ‘chilling effect’ will be ‘self-inflicted,’ and thereby untraceable to the Board’s requirements,” Wilkinson wrote.
Wilkinson also highlighted the impact of recurring lawsuits challenging state election rules.
“Over the past five years, North Carolina has been flooded with dozens of challenges to the State’s electoral regulations,” he wrote. “We understand that many of these challenges are reasonably grounded in the law, and their gravity should not be understated. At the same time, the constant pull to the courtroom leaves state election officials frequently operating in a provisional state, never knowing if and when their procedures will be overturned.”
“This state of affairs is not conducive to the most efficient administration of elections,” Wilkinson added.
“Often, a board of elections must either choose to forego policies that serve significant governmental interests in preserving electoral integrity, or risk enforcing potentially unconstitutional measures that could throw a shadow over an entire federal election. Neither option is desirable,” he wrote.
Judges Julius Richardson and Allison Jones Rushing joined Wilkinson’s opinion.