On September 30, 2008, a judge for the US District Court for the District of Nevada invalidated Nevada's County Population Rule as unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. The order stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada (ACLU-NV) challenging the law, which required petitions for ballot initiatives to amend the Nevada Constitution be signed by registered voters from each county totaling ten percent of those who voted statewide at the preceding general election. The lawsuit alleged that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause by favoring residents of sparsely populated counties over residents of heavily populated counties.



Learn more about election law from the JURIST news archive.