The opinion
United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued March 14, 2025 Decided June 20, 2025
No. 24-7050
STACIA HALL, ET AL.,
APPELLANTS
v.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BOARD OF ELECTIONS,
APPELLEE
Consolidated with 24-7065
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 1:23-cv-01261)
Christopher J. Hajec argued the cause and filed the briefs
for appellants/cross-appellees.
Bryan J. Leitch, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the
Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the cause
for appellee/cross-appellant. With him on the briefs were Brian
L. Schwalb, Attorney General, Caroline S. Van Zile, Solicitor
General, Ashwin P. Phatak, Principal Deputy Solicitor General,
2
and Carl J. Schifferle, Deputy Solicitor General.
Before: PILLARD and CHILDS, Circuit Judges, and
RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the court filed by Senior Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.
RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge: Seven District of
Columbia citizen-voters filed a complaint challenging the
constitutionality of the Local Resident Voting Rights
Amendment Act of 2022, 69 D.C. Reg. 14,601 (Dec. 2, 2022),
a D.C. law permitting noncitizens to vote in municipal elections.
The district court, without reaching the merits, held that the
plaintiffs lacked standing to sue and dismissed the complaint.
We reverse.
I.
In 2022, the District of Columbia Council, the legislative
body for the District, passed the Local Resident Voting Rights
Amendment Act (LRVRAA).1 Prior to its passage, only
“citizen[s] of the United States” who were at least eighteen years
old on Election Day were eligible to vote in D.C. elections, both
at the federal and local levels. See D.C. Code § 1-1001.02(2)
(2022). The LRVRAA removed the citizenship requirement for
“local election[s],” defined as elections for municipal office or
involving a D.C. ballot measure. Id. § 1-1001.02(34). Instead,
any individual who had “maintained a residence in the District
for at least 30 days preceding the next election” and “d[id] not
claim voting residence or right to vote in any [other] state,
territory, or country” could vote in a D.C. local election. Id. § 1-
1
The LRVRAA was enacted on November 21, 2022. After Congress’s
thirty-day review period elapsed without action, see D.C. Code § 1-
206.02(c)(1), the law went into effect on February 23, 2023.
3
1001.02(2)(C). And because status as a D.C. voter is the chief
prerequisite to holding elected office, the LRVRAA had the
effect of opening D.C.’s municipal offices to noncitizens. See id.
§ 1-204.21(c)(1)(A) (mayor); id. § 1-301.83(a)(1) (attorney
general); id. § 1-204.02(1) (D.C. Council member); id. § 1-
1001.04(a)(1) (Board of Elections member). The District of
Columbia Board of Elections administers the D.C. voting rolls
and is therefore responsible for implementing the LRVRAA. See
id. § 1-1001.05(a)(1).
Stacia Hall and six other plaintiffs brought this suit in D.C.
Superior Court, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against
the Board’s enforcement of the LRVRAA. Hall and her co-
plaintiffs are D.C. residents and U.S. citizens who are registered
to vote in the District.2 In addition, Hall was a candidate for
D.C. Mayor in 2022, and Ralph Chittams, another plaintiff, was
a candidate for the D.C. Council in 2018. Plaintiffs argue that
the LRVRAA violates the federal constitution by impermissibly
diluting their votes, discriminating against U.S. citizens and
individuals born in the United States in violation of the Fifth
Amendment Equal Protection Clause, and transgressing the
“constitutional right to citizen self-government.” J.A.14–16.
The Board removed the case to federal court and then
moved to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing and
had failed to state a claim. While that motion was pending
before the district court, the plaintiffs submitted a new
declaration from Hall that, “[a]t the time this lawsuit was filed,”
she “was planning to run for public office” in D.C., though she
noted that her plans had changed multiple times. J.A. 95.
2
We accept the complaint’s well-pleaded allegations as true for the
purposes of this motion to dismiss. See Am. Nat’l Ins. Co. v. FDIC,
642 F.3d 1137, 1139 (D.C. Cir. 2011).
4
The district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing. It
first noted that “voter dilution can support standing” if the voter
plaintiffs “allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves as
individuals.” Hall v. D.C. Bd. of Elections, No. 23-1261, 2024
WL 1212953, at *3 (D.D.C. Mar. 20, 2024) (second excerpt
quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 206 (1962)). For example,
a voter may have standing if the government draws
classifications that “irrationally favor[]” certain counties,
promotes “arbitrary distinction[s]” between individuals, or relies
on a flawed census to apportion representation. Id. (first excerpt
quoting Baker, 369 U.S. at 208). But the district court
emphasized that “not every alleged dilution of voting rights
gives rise to an injury that would support a finding of standing.”
Id. at *4. It faulted the plaintiffs here for not identifying “any
sort of disadvantage as individual voters,” since the LRVRAA
will not cause the plaintiffs’ votes to be “treated differently than
noncitizens’ votes,” counted towards a different election, or
devalued through a discriminatory gerrymander. Id. The district
court thus concluded that the plaintiffs had raised nothing more
than a “generalized grievance which is insufficient to confer
standing.” Id.
The plaintiffs timely appealed, and the Board cross-
appealed to preserve its merits arguments.
II.
A.
Under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, federal courts
may only resolve “[c]ases” and “[c]ontroversies.” U.S. Const.
art. III § 2, cl. 1. We enforce this limit in part through the
doctrine of standing, “an essential and unchanging part of the
case-or-controversy requirement.” Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife,
504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). Standing separates those disputes
5
“that are of the justiciable sort referred to in Article III,” and
thus “appropriately resolved through the judicial process,” from
other disputes that more properly belong with the legislature. Id.
(second excerpt quoting Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149,
155 (1990)). The “irreducible constitutional minimum” of
standing comprises (1) an injury-in-fact that is (2) traceable to
the defendant’s conduct and (3) redressable by a favorable
decision of the court. Id. at 560–61. The plaintiff, as the party
invoking federal jurisdiction, “bears the burden” of establishing
these three essential elements. Id. at 561.
This case concerns the injury-in-fact requirement: the
plaintiff’s injury must be “concrete, particularized, and actual or
imminent.” TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 423
(2021). The injury must demonstrate “a personal stake in the
outcome of the controversy.” Gill v. Whitford, 585 U.S. 48, 65
(2018) (quoting Baker, 369 U.S. at 204). A plaintiff lacks
standing if he seeks to vindicate merely a “general interest
common to all members of the public.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 575
(quoting Ex parte Levitt, 302 U.S. 633, 634 (1937)). Such a
dispute does not constitute an Article III case or controversy,
since the plaintiff’s interest in resolving the dispute is “plainly
undifferentiated” and “common to all members of the public.”
Id. (quoting United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 177
(1974)).
This distinction—between particularized injuries and
generalized grievances—ensures “that federal courts exercise
‘their proper function in a limited and separated government.’”
TransUnion, 594 U.S. at 423 (quoting John G. Roberts, Jr.,
Article III Limits on Statutory Standing, 42 Duke L.J. 1219,
1224 (1993)). A court empowered to conduct “general legal
oversight of the Legislative and Executive Branches,” id. at
423–24—or to remedy the “abstract injury” of “the generalized
interest of all citizens in constitutional governance,” Schlesinger
6
v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 217
(1974)—would no longer be “exercis[ing] power that is judicial
in nature,” Gill, 585 U.S. at 65 (quoting Lance v. Coffman, 549
U.S. 437, 441 (2007)). Instead, it would be improperly intruding
on the “activities [that] are appropriate to legislatures.” Lujan,
504 U.S. at 560.
We review dismissals for lack of standing de novo. See
Tanner-Brown v. Haaland, 105 F.4th 437, 443 (D.C. Cir. 2024).
“In doing so, we assume the truth of all material factual
allegations in [the] complaint and construe the complaint
liberally, granting [plaintiffs] the benefit of all reasonable
inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged.” Cato Inst.
v. SEC, 4 F.4th 91, 94 (D.C. Cir. 2021).
B.
The Supreme Court has “long recognized” that individuals
can suffer voting-related injuries sufficient to support standing.
Gill, 585 U.S. at 65. The right to vote is inherently “individual
and personal in nature,” and the judiciary is empowered to
vindicate individualized infringements on that right. Id. (quoting
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 561 (1964)). Crucially,
however, a voter plaintiff must “allege facts showing
disadvantage to themselves as individuals.” Id. at 65–66
(quoting Baker, 369 U.S. at 206). A plaintiff therefore may
demonstrate standing only by grounding a claim in his or her
specific circumstances.
Vote dilution can be one example of a voting-related injury.
Gill involved a challenge to Wisconsin’s map of state legislative
districts. See id. at 55. Plaintiffs alleged that their votes had been
devalued through partisan gerrymandering. See id. at 66. The
Supreme Court accepted that the “dilution of [plaintiffs’] votes”
could be a cognizable injury in the gerrymandering context, id.,
7
because improperly drawn districts can cause a plaintiff’s vote
“to carry less weight than it would carry in another, hypothetical
district,” id. at 67. Properly pleaded, this imbalance rose to the
level of an “individual voter’s harm” that was sufficient to
support standing. Id.
Not all vote-dilution claims pass muster, however. Gill
emphasized that voting-related harms are cognizable only for
voters who are directly affected, not for all voters indirectly
impacted via our representative political system. See id. at
67–68. For example, only plaintiffs residing in an improperly
gerrymandered district have standing—and then only to
challenge the construction of their particular district. Id. Even
though all Wisconsin residents were governed by the collective
Wisconsin legislature—and thus indirectly impacted by the
outcome of the election in each state legislative district—those
plaintiffs’ theory of “statewide harm” was nothing more than an
“interest in the overall composition of the legislature”
insufficient to support standing. Id. at 68. Such an indirect harm
was a “nonjusticiable ‘general interest common to all members
of the public’” and thus a complaint more properly channeled
via the legislative process. Id. (quoting Levitt, 302 U.S. at 634).
Three decades ago, our court conducted a similar analysis
in Michel v. Anderson, 14 F.3d 623 (D.C. Cir. 1994), a case
outside the gerrymandering context. There, the U.S. House of
Representatives changed its rules to allow five otherwise-
nonvoting delegates from the U.S. territories and the District of
Columbia to participate in certain committee votes. Id. at
624–25. Voters from the states (as opposed to the territories and
the District) brought suit, alleging that their votes had been
diluted because their congressmen had lost voting power. Id. at
626. Before rejecting this claim on the merits, we held that the
voters had “standing to raise a claim that their vote was diluted.”
Id. We reasoned that their representatives’ vote share had
8
declined from 1-in-435 representatives to 1-in-440
representatives and territorial delegates. Id. Since the plaintiffs’
votes were therefore marginally less powerful in affecting
congressional decision-making, we held that they were “worth”
less, a palpable loss of voting power that was a “distinct and
concrete harm” suffered by each voter in the fifty states and
sufficient to support standing. Id. Michel accordingly drew a
distinction between impermissibly “abstract” harms and
“widespread” but concrete injuries. Id. We held that, if the
concreteness requirement was met, the number of potential
plaintiffs did not affect the standing inquiry. Even though
changes to the composition of the House equally injured all
American voters, all such voters nevertheless experienced an
individualized vote-dilution harm and “any of those voters could
claim an injury.” Id.
C.
Those principles control this case. The plaintiffs here
advance a vote-dilution claim predicated on the power of their
ballots. They allege that the LRVRAA causes a “debasement or
dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote” from the “expansion[]
of the franchise.” Compl. ¶¶ 46–47, J.A. 12 (first excerpt
quoting Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 555). Logically and
mathematically, that is true: granting the franchise to noncitizens
will expand the D.C. electorate and reduce the voting power of
each U.S. citizen voter in local elections.
The claimed injury is hardly abstract, as each voter
experiences a direct reduction in the strength of his or her
“individual and personal” vote. Gill, 585 U.S. at 65 (quoting
Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 561). The plaintiffs are seeking relief
relating to their home jurisdiction and concerning an election in
which they will participate. Unlike the statewide theories of
harm rejected in Gill, the plaintiffs here do not complain of a
9
harm in a different election that indirectly affects them, nor do
they assert claims merely about the composition of the D.C.
municipal government writ large. Their claims turn exclusively
on their individual votes and the power attached to those votes
in the D.C. local elections. Said differently, this case concerns
“a real controversy with real impact on real persons.”
TransUnion, 594 U.S. at 424 (quoting Am. Legion v. Am.
Humanist Ass’n, 588 U.S. 29, 87 (2019) (Gorsuch, J., concurring
in the judgment)).
Nor is it dispositive that the plaintiffs’ injuries are “shared
by all citizen voters.” Board Br. 26. The litmus test is not
numerosity but concreteness. Under Michel, simply because “all
voters in the states suffer[ed] [an] injury . . . d[id] not make it an
‘abstract’ one”—and Michel endorsed a type of injury “suffered
by every American voter.” 14 F.3d at 626. As long as “each
person can be said to have suffered a distinct and concrete
harm,” id., we do not hold it against some plaintiffs that they
may have company. The alternative would be to render
government action unreviewable as long as it disadvantages
everyone equally. But if, for example, a municipality made all
residents ineligible to vote, surely those individuals would have
standing to sue. Here, the injury the plaintiffs assert relates to
their specific votes in elections in which they intend to
participate. That injury is enough to confer standing.
The Board relies on two decisions of our court, neither of
which alter our analysis.
First, Hudson v. Haaland, 843 F. App’x 336 (D.C. Cir.
2021), rejected a challenge to a tribal election on standing
grounds. The plaintiff claimed that changes to certain voting
procedures affected the “potency” of his vote, but we noted in
dicta that “the power of Hudson’s vote was the same as those
cast by all other voters.” Id. at 338. Since the plaintiff did not
10
lose voting power “relative to” other tribal members, he had not
alleged “the sort of vote dilution theory that courts have found
to support standing.” Id.
But Hudson—an unpublished judgment deciding that the
underlying issues were “moot,” id.—differs in several important
respects from this case. Most crucially, Hudson did not involve
an expansion of the tribal electorate. Instead, the plaintiff
challenged modifications to vote-counting procedures, new
quorum requirements, and a shift from single-member districts
to two-member districts. Id. at 337. But none of those changes
altered his voting power relative to the rest of the electorate. He
could still participate in the same election, with the same
electorate, and with the same share of representation in
government. And though Hudson never cited Michel, its
emphasis on the “power of Hudson’s vote,” his alleged “loss of
voting power,” and the “potency” of each ballot, id. at 338, only
reinforces Michel’s holding that our vote-dilution analysis turns
on whether a plaintiff voter has suffered an individualized loss
of electoral influence.3
The Board also relies on Daughtrey v. Carter, 584 F.2d
1050 (D.C. Cir. 1978), which involved a challenge to President
Carter’s pardons of Vietnam War draft dodgers. There, the
plaintiffs “allege[d] that their voting rights [were] diluted by the
unlawful entry into the United States . . . and the resulting
3
Hudson also drew on Eleventh Circuit caselaw holding that vote-
dilution claims require a “point of comparison.” 843 F. App’x at 338
(quoting Wood v. Raffensperger, 981 F.3d 1307, 1314 (11th Cir.
2020)). Our circuit has not formally adopted that test, and we do not
do so here. But to the extent it is relevant, Michel suggests that
plaintiffs may compare their current voting power with a prior state to
show a change. In any event, the facts of Hudson render it
distinguishable from this case.
11
exercise of full political rights” by formerly ineligible
individuals. Id. at 1055. We held that the plaintiffs lacked
standing, but not because expansions of the franchise can never
support standing. Instead, conducting an “[a]d hoc scrutiny of
the facts,” we found that the plaintiffs “reside[d] in various
localities across the United States” and thus did not plead vote
dilution “in any particular election or in any particular
geographical area,” nor as part of any “identifiable group of
voters whose votes are disfavored.” Id. at 1056 (first excerpt
quoting Harrington v. Bush, 553 F.2d 190, 206 (D.C. Cir.
1977)). Since “[a]t best” the Daughtrey plaintiffs’ supposed
harms covered “elections for any office” occurring “anywhere
in the United States,” the “dilution of voting rights they ha[d]
alleged [wa]s . . . diffuse, minute, and indeterminable.” Id. They
failed to identify any “‘discrete factual context’ within which
‘concrete injury’ occurred,” making the asserted injuries merely
“speculative” and lacking the requisite “personal stake” to
support standing. Id. at 1056–57 (first quoting Baker, 369 U.S.
at 204; second excerpt quoting Am. Soc. of Travel Agents, Inc.
v. Blumenthal, 566 F.2d 145, 149 (D.C. Cir. 1977); and then
quoting Baker, 369 U.S. at 204).
This case stands in sharp contrast to Daughtrey. The
plaintiffs here are all D.C. residents and have identified the
specific jurisdiction in which they believe they will lose voting
power. Daughtrey stands for the proposition that generalized
assertions about new voters are not sufficient to bring suit.
Plaintiffs instead must identify specific factual
situations—jurisdictions, elections, offices—in which they
believe their vote will be devalued. But hardening Daughtrey
into a bright-line rule that changes to the electorate can never
support standing would render expansions of the franchise as
categorically unreviewable. We decline to set out such an
expansive rule.
12
D.
One issue remains. The Board urges us to find that, even if
the plaintiffs’ vote-dilution injury is cognizable, they failed to
properly plead an intent to vote in future elections. When a
plaintiff seeks prospective relief based on a potential future
injury, “‘some day’ intentions—without any description of
concrete plans, or indeed even any specification of when the
some day will be—do not support a finding of the ‘actual or
imminent’ injury that our cases require.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 564
(emphasis in original); cf. Nader v. FEC, 725 F.3d 226, 229
(D.C. Cir. 2013) (candidate statements that he “may run for
office again” were “too speculative” to confer candidate-based
standing).
While close, we believe the complaint contains sufficient
factual allegations to conclude that at least one plaintiff—Stacia
Hall—intends to vote in future D.C. elections.4 To be sure, it
would have been far simpler if the plaintiffs had stated as much.
But the complaint alleges that each plaintiff was a “registered
voter in the District of Columbia.” Compl. ¶¶ 13–19, J.A. 4. The
complaint explains that it wishes to vindicate “Plaintiffs’
fundamental right to vote.” Id. ¶ 57, J.A. 15. Hall’s February
2024 declaration states that, as of 2022, she “wanted to continue
fighting to serve the District and knew that part of that effort
4
We look only to the allegations in the complaint and Hall’s February
2024 declaration. Hall and another plaintiff, Richard Heller, submitted
additional declarations appended to their reply brief in this court. In
both declarations, they aver that they intend to vote in the 2026
election. But “[i]n determining whether the [plaintiffs] have standing,
the court may not consider on appeal supplemental declarations filed
after entry of the judgment appealed.” Swanson Grp. Mfg. LLC v.
Jewell, 790 F.3d 235, 240 (D.C. Cir. 2015); see also Frito-Lay, Inc. v.
Willoughby, 863 F.2d 1029, 1035–36 (D.C. Cir. 1988).
13
would be to run for public office again.” J.A. 94. While these
statements do not explicitly allege a future voting intention, on
a motion to dismiss we “grant[] plaintiff[s] the benefit of all
inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged,” Am. Nat’l
Ins. Co. v. FDIC, 642 F.3d 1137, 1139 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (quoting
Thomas v. Principi, 394 F.3d 970, 972 (D.C. Cir. 2005)), and we
“presum[e] that general allegations embrace those specific facts
that are necessary to support the claim,” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561
(quoting Lujan v. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 497 U.S. 871, 889
(1990)). Hall’s general allegations allow us to reasonably infer
that she, if not also her co-plaintiffs, intends to vote in future
D.C. elections. And only one plaintiff need have standing for
this lawsuit to proceed. See Mendoza v. Perez, 754 F.3d 1002,
1010 (D.C. Cir. 2014).5
***
Since the plaintiffs have made a plausible showing of a
particularized injury to their vote, we reverse and remand. The
Board’s cross-appeal is dismissed as moot.6
So ordered.
5
Of course, the plaintiffs must support their standing with the “manner
and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the
litigation.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561. The standing inquiry will
ultimately turn on their ability to support the allegations and
inferences we today assume arguendo.
6
Given our holding that the plaintiffs have standing as voters, we
express no view on their candidate and “citizen self-government”
theories of standing.