(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2025 1
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
BOST ET AL. v. ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF
ELECTIONS ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 24–568. Argued October 8, 2025—Decided January 14, 2026
Illinois law requires election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked
or certified no later than election day and received within two weeks
of election day. Congressman Michael Bost and two other political candidates filed a lawsuit claiming that counting ballots received after
election day violates federal law. They principally contended that doing so conflicts with 2 U. S. C. §7 and 3 U. S. C. §1, which set election
day as the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. The district court dismissed the case, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed on the
ground that petitioners lacked standing.
Held: As a candidate for office, Congressman Bost has standing to challenge the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election. Pp. 3– 10.
(a) Under Article III of the Constitution, plaintiffs must have a “personal stake” in a case to have standing to sue. FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S. 367, 379. An unlawful election rule can injure a candidate in several ways: It might cause him to lose the election, require him to expend additional resources, or decrease his vote share and damage his reputation. But winning, and doing so as inexpensively and decisively as possible, are not a candidate’s only interests in an election.
Candidates also have an interest in a fair process. Candidates seek to represent the people, and their interest in that prize cannot be severed from their interest in the electoral process. Win or lose, candidates suffer when the process departs from the law. The harm to candidates from an unfair and inaccurate election is not common to all. 2 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
Syllabus
While voters also have a general interest in an accurate vote tally, a
candidate’s interest differs in kind. Those who spend time and resources seeking to claim the right to voice the will of the people have
“an undeniably different—and more particularized—interest” in
knowing what that will is. Hotze v. Hudspeth, 16 F. 4th 1121, 1126
(Oldham, J., dissenting).
Rules that undermine the integrity of the electoral process also undermine the winner’s political legitimacy. The counting of unlawful
votes—or discarding of lawful ones—erodes public confidence in election results and the elected representative. “[R]eputational harms”
are classic Article III injuries. TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S.
413, 425. And they are particularly concrete for those whose very jobs
depend on the support of the people. Pp. 3–6.
(b) Candidates do not need to show a substantial risk that a rule will
cause them to lose the election or prevent them from achieving a legally significant vote threshold in order to have standing. Requiring
such a showing could channel many election disputes to shortly before
election day or after. Only then will many candidates be able to predict
with any certainty that a rule will be outcome determinative. Yet the
Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election. Such
late-breaking, court-ordered rule changes can result in voter confusion
and undermine confidence in the integrity of electoral processes. The
democratic consequences can be worse if courts intervene only after
votes have been counted. Counting first and ruling upon legality afterwards is not a recipe for producing election results that have the
public acceptance democratic stability requires.
Premising standing on a candidate’s risk of election loss or failure to
achieve a certain vote threshold would also convert Article III judges
into political prognosticators and “invite[ ] findings on matters as to
which neither judges nor anyone else can have any confidence.” Rucho
v. Common Cause, 588 U. S. 684, 711 (internal quotation marks omitted). “[A]ccurately predicting electoral outcomes is not” a “simple” endeavor. Id., at 712. And the limits of federal courts’ jurisdiction do not
rest upon such “unstable ground outside judicial expertise.” Id., at
713.
Nor would requiring candidates to plead a substantial risk of harm
to their vote share leave courts on any surer footing. Such an approach
would force judges to assess whether an election rule is likely to disadvantage a particular candidate—determinations judges are no better
qualified to make than assessing a candidate’s likelihood of winning or
losing. Candidates would also have to plead and prove that voters who
take advantage of the challenged rule will favor their rivals, which
may require divulging information about political vulnerabilities.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ___ (2026) 3
Syllabus
Faced with that prospect, many candidates are sure to wait until after
votes are counted to sue.
Article III does not require this result. Candidates have a concrete
and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of
votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns. Their interest
extends to the integrity of the election—and the democratic process by
which they earn or lose the support of the people they seek to represent. Pp. 6–10.
114 F. 4th 634, reversed and remanded.
ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, and KAVANAUGH, JJ., joined. BARRETT, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which KAGAN, J., joined. JACKSON, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 1
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 24–568
MICHAEL J. BOST, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ILLINOIS
STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
[January 14, 2026]
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the
Court.
Three political candidates challenged Illinois’s procedure
for counting mail-in ballots received after election day. We
consider whether the candidates have standing to maintain
their suit.
I
Illinois law requires election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked or certified no later than election day and
received within two weeks of election day. Ill. Comp. Stat.,
ch. 10, §§5/19–8(c), 5/18A–15(a) (West 2022). In May 2022,
Congressman Michael Bost and Presidential elector nominees Laura Pollastrini and Susan Sweeney (petitioners)
sued the Illinois State Board of Elections and its executive
director (respondents), claiming that counting ballots received after election day violates federal law. They principally contended that doing so conflicts with 2 U. S. C. §7
and 3 U. S. C. §1, which set election day as the Tuesday following the first Monday in November.
2 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
Opinion of the Court
In their complaint and declarations, petitioners asserted
several bases for standing as candidates.1 They first argued
that they were “entitled to have their election[ ] results certified with votes received in compliance with the federal
Election Day statutes.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 87a. And they
alleged that they “rely on provisions of federal and state law in conducting their campaigns including, in particular, resources allocated to the post-election certification process.” Id., at 87a–88a. Congressman Bost further explained that
the late counting of ballots would require him to “organize,
fundraise, and run [his] campaign for fourteen additional
days.” Id., at 66a. This, in turn, would “cost[ his] campaign
time, money, volunteers and other resources” by, for example, requiring the campaign to send poll watchers to “monitor late arriving ballots.” Id., at 67a. He also alleged that he “risk[ed] injury if untimely and illegal ballots cause[d
him] to lose [his] election,” and “because [his] margin of victory . . . may be reduced.” Id., at 68a. “A diminished margin of victory [would] lead to the public perception that [his] constituents have concerns about [his] job performance,”
which would “influence . . . future voters, Congressional
leadership, donors, and potential political opponents.” Id.,
at 68a–69a.2
The District Court held that petitioners lacked standing
and dismissed the suit. 684 F. Supp. 3d 720 (ND Ill. 2023).
Petitioners appealed, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed.
114 F. 4th 634 (2024). The court concluded that the costs
1 At the time, Congressman Bost was a candidate in the 2022 election,
and Pollastrini and Sweeney planned to seek reappointment as Presidential electors in the 2024 election. Congressman Bost has served as the United States Representative for Illinois’s 12th Congressional District since he was first elected in 2014. And he was previously a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, to which he was first elected in 1994.
2 Petitioners also alleged that Illinois’s ballot receipt deadline injured
them as voters by “dilut[ing] the weight of [their] votes.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 88a. They have not advanced that argument before this Court.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 3
Opinion of the Court
to monitor vote counting after election day could not support standing, because those costs would have been voluntarily incurred “to avoid a hypothetical future harm—an
election defeat.” Id., at 642. In doing so, the court noted
that Congressman Bost had won the last election with 75%
of the vote. Ibid. It also rejected petitioners’ asserted
“ ‘competitive injury,’ ” reasoning that they “do not (and cannot) allege that the majority of the votes that will be received and counted after Election Day will break against
them.” Id., at 643. Finally, it dismissed petitioners’ asserted injury based on an inaccurate vote tally as unduly
“speculative,” because “the election is months away and the
voting process has not even started.” Id., at 644. Judge
Scudder dissented in part. In his view, Congressman Bost
had standing based on the extra costs his campaign would
incur to monitor the counting of late arriving ballots. We
granted certiorari. 605 U. S. ___ (2025).
II
Under Article III of the Constitution, plaintiffs must have
a “personal stake” in a case to have standing to sue. FDA
v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S. 367, 379
(2024). They must, in other words, be able to answer a basic
question: “ ‘What’s it to you?’ ” A. Scalia, The Doctrine of
Standing as an Essential Element of the Separation of Powers, 17 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 881, 882 (1983). Congressman
Bost has an obvious answer: He is a candidate for office.
And a candidate has a personal stake in the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election.3
3 Because only one plaintiff needs standing for a suit to proceed, we do
not address whether Pollastrini and Sweeney have standing to sue as prospective Presidential electors. See Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S. 477, 489 (2023).
4 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
Opinion of the Court
A
An unlawful election rule can injure a candidate in several ways. It might cause him to lose the election. It might
require him to expend additional resources. Or it might decrease his vote share and damage his reputation. Respondents concede that each of these harms can be legally cognizable. But they contend that Congressman Bost failed to
adequately plead any such harm here. We need not resolve
whether respondents are right, because winning, and doing
so as inexpensively and decisively as possible, are not a candidate’s only interests in an election.4
To start, candidates also have an interest in a fair process. Candidates are not common competitors in the economic marketplace. They seek to represent the people. And
their interest in that prize cannot be severed from their interest in the electoral process—a process “of the most fundamental significance under our constitutional structure.”
Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173, 184 (1979). Win or lose, candidates suffer when the
process departs from the law. Thus, the long-shot and shooin alike would suffer harm if a State chose to conduct its
election by, say, flipping a coin. The result of such an election would not reflect the will of the people, and the candidates would lose the opportunity to compete for the people’s
support. So too, similar harms would result from less dramatic departures—for example, if a State decided to discard
a random 10% of cast votes. Whether these decisions help,
hurt, or have no effect on a candidate’s electoral prospects,
they deprive the candidate of a fair process and an accurate
result.
4 Respondents do not dispute that Congressman Bost pleaded a distinct
interest in the “election[ ] results [being] certified with [lawful] votes.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 87a. They argue only that this interest is not legally cognizable. Because we disagree, we need not resolve the parties’ pleading dispute.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 5
Opinion of the Court
Such harm to candidates is in no sense “common to all
members of the public.” Lance v. Coffman, 549 U. S. 437,
440 (2007) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Voters, to be sure, also have a “general interest” in an accurate vote tally. Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).
But a candidate’s interest differs in kind. An unfair and
inaccurate election plainly affects those who compete for
the support of the people in a different way than it affects
the people who lend their support. We have no occasion to
theorize about the “significance of the[se] relative interests,” contra, post, at 3 (JACKSON, J., dissenting), or the
“sincer[ity]” with which they are held, Carney v. Adams,
592 U. S. 53, 59 (2020) (internal quotation marks omitted).
What matters is that the harm candidates suffer is distinct
from that suffered by the “people generally.” Massachusetts
v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 488 (1923). Those who spend untold time and resources seeking to claim the right to voice
the will of the people have “an undeniably different—and
more particularized—interest” in knowing what that will
is. Hotze v. Hudspeth, 16 F. 4th 1121, 1126 (CA5 2021)
(Oldham, J., dissenting).
Rules that undermine the “integrity of the electoral process” also undermine the winner’s political legitimacy.
Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 553 U. S. 181, 197
(2008) (opinion of Stevens, J.). The counting of unlawful
votes—or discarding of lawful ones—erodes public confidence that the election results reflect the people’s will. And when public confidence in the election results falters, public confidence in the elected representative follows. To the representative, that loss of legitimacy—or its diminution—is a
concrete harm. “[R]eputational harms,” as a general matter, are classic Article III injuries. TransUnion LLC v.
Ramirez, 594 U. S. 413, 425 (2021) (citing Meese v. Keene,
481 U. S. 465, 473 (1987)). But they are particularly concrete for those whose very jobs depend on the support of the
people.
6 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
Opinion of the Court
Candidates, in short, are not “mere bystanders” in their
own elections. Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. EPA,
606 U. S. 100, 110 (2025). They have an obvious personal
stake in how the result is determined and regarded. Departures from the preordained rules cause them particularized
and concrete harm.5 The same is true of competitors in
other contests. Each runner in a 100-meter dash, for example, would suffer if the race were unexpectedly extended to
105 meters. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 90. Whether a particular
runner expects to finish strong or fall off the pace in the
final five meters, all would be deprived of the chance to compete for the prize that the rules define. The fastest to run
105 meters has not won the 100-meter dash. And in much
the same way, an unlawful extension of vote counting deprives candidates of the opportunity to compete for election
under the Constitution and laws of the United States.
B
Respondents and the dissent dismiss these harms, which
plainly affect candidates in a “personal and individual
way,” as generalized grievances. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578
U. S. 330, 339 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted).
And they suggest that in order to have standing, plaintiffcandidates must show some substantial risk that a rule will
cause them to lose the election, prevent them from achieving a legally significant vote threshold, or damage their reputation or finances. Brief for Respondents 25–26; post, at
9. That approach finds no support in Article III’s case or
controversy requirement or our case law interpreting that
5 Contrary to the concurrence’s suggestion, post, at 4 (BARRETT, J., concurring in judgment), such harm is far “more particularized and more concrete than the mere assertion that something unlawful benefited [a] competitor.” Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., 568 U. S. 85, 99 (2013). And it bears little resemblance to the specific injury alleged in Already: a risk of being sued by a company that had issued an “unconditional and irrevocable” covenant not to sue. Id., at 93.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 7
Opinion of the Court
requirement. And it is as practically untenable as it is undemocratic.
Premising standing on a candidate’s risk of election loss
or failure to achieve a certain vote threshold could channel
many election disputes to shortly before election day—or
worse, after. Only then will many candidates be able to
predict with any certainty that a rule will be outcome determinative. And only then will they be able to produce the
“manner and degree of evidence required,” particularly at
later “stages of the litigation,” to establish standing. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 561 (1992).
Yet “[t]his Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower
federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules
on the eve of an election.” Republican National Committee
v. Democratic National Committee, 589 U. S. 423, 424
(2020) (per curiam). Such late-breaking, court-ordered rule
changes can “result in voter confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls,” and thus undermine
the “[c]onfidence in the integrity of our electoral processes
. . . essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy.” Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U. S. 1, 4–5 (2006) (per curiam); see also Republican Party of Pennsylvania v.
Degraffenreid, 592 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2021) (THOMAS, J.,
dissenting from denial of certiorari) (slip op., at 4–5). The
democratic consequences can be even more dire if courts intervene only after votes have been counted. “Count first,
and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance
democratic stability requires.” Bush v. Gore, 531 U. S.
1046, 1047 (2000) (Scalia, J., concurring in grant of stay).
Even if some candidates could muster evidence well before election day that a rule will likely be outcome determinative, respondents’ and the dissent’s approach would convert Article III judges into political prognosticators and
“invite[ ] findings on matters as to which neither judges nor
anyone else can have any confidence.” Rucho v. Common
8 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
Opinion of the Court
Cause, 588 U. S. 684, 711 (2019) (internal quotation marks
omitted). As a number of prominent historical figures can
attest, not least among them Charles Evans Hughes and
Thomas Dewey, “accurately predicting electoral outcomes
is not” a “simple” endeavor. Id., at 712. And if the prognosticators themselves lack the “political clairvoyance” to predict the winner after all votes have been cast, then surely
judges are poorly positioned to assess whether a candidate’s
risk of loss, months earlier, is substantial. Diamond Alternative Energy, 606 U. S., at 123; see also Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U. S. 267, 287, n. 8 (2004) (plurality opinion). The limits of federal courts’ jurisdiction do not rest upon such “unstable ground outside judicial expertise.” Rucho, 588 U. S.,
at 713.
Nor would requiring candidates to plead a substantial
risk of harm to their vote share leave courts on any surer
footing. Such an approach would force judges to assess
whether an election rule is likely to disadvantage a particular candidate. And at least as respondents suggest, judges
must then also ensure that any disadvantage is linked to
reputational or financial harm.6
Judges are no better qualified to make such determinations than they are to assess a candidate’s likelihood of winning or losing. Even if they could do so, this approach would
still channel many disputes into postelection litigation. To
bring a preelection suit, a candidate would have to plead
6 Respondents at times appear to suggest that “[a] candidate may have
standing if she demonstrates that an election rule disadvantages her relative to a competitor,” even absent proof of reputational or financial harm or a risk that she will lose the election. Brief for Respondents 26; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 94. Yet it is far from clear why a slight but certain competitive disadvantage would qualify as an injury in fact but requiring a candidate to compete in an unfair election would not. Indeed, the harm a candidate would suffer from winning 60% of the vote, instead of 61%, seems less salient than the harm she would suffer if she instead won 62% because of an unlawful rule, and the public believed she had received an unfair advantage.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 9
Opinion of the Court
and prove that voters who take advantage of the challenged
rule will favor his rivals. Doing so while campaigning for
those same voters’ support is not just awkward, but politically dangerous. Particularly for new election rules, it may
require divulging information about vulnerabilities that rival candidates could exploit. Faced with that prospect,
many candidates are sure to wait until after votes are
counted to sue.
Adding monetary harm to the equation, as the concurrence proposes, would change none of this. Post, at 2–3
(BARRETT, J., concurring in judgment). Plaintiffs cannot
“manufacture standing by voluntarily” incurring costs.
Federal Election Comm’n v. Ted Cruz for Senate, 596 U. S.
289, 297 (2022). They must incur those costs to “mitigate
or avoid” a “ ‘substantial risk’ ” of some independent harm.
Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U. S. 398, 414, n. 5
(2013). Acknowledging as much, the concurrence ultimately speculates that it is “reasonably probable” Congressman Bost’s election will be at risk because of discrepancies in late-arriving ballots. Post, at 3. Such conjecture—
beyond finding little support in the pleadings—carries all
the concerns we have explained. And the concurrence’s approach introduces a new one: Apparently, a candidate who
pays poll watchers a penny would have standing, while one
who relies on volunteers would not.
Nothing about Article III requires this result. Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the
rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections,
regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns. Their interest extends to the integrity of the election—and the
10 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
Opinion of the Court
democratic process by which they earn or lose the support
of the people they seek to represent.7
* * *
“Courts sometimes make standing law more complicated
than it needs to be.” Thole v. U. S. Bank N. A., 590 U. S.
538, 547 (2020). We decline respondents’ invitation to do so
here. As a candidate for office, Congressman Bost has
standing to challenge the rules that govern the counting of
votes in his election.
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for
the Seventh Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
7 We do not share the dissent’s concern that our recognition of this commonsense reality will “open[ ] the floodgates” to candidate-led challenges to ballot “format.” Post, at 11–12. Indeed, the dissent itself suggests that courts already “ ‘often decide ballot-design cases,’ ” pointing to a case in which a court concluded that candidates did have standing to challenge “ ‘the form of election ballots.’ ” Post, at 12, n. 5 (quoting Kim v. Hanlon, 99 F. 4th 140, 147, 153 (CA3 2024)). To the extent the dissent’s concern is that federal courts will be inundated with more trivial “format” challenges, post, at 12, to things like “ballot font and typeface,” Brief for District of Columbia et al. as Amici Curiae 20, it is neither clear why candidates would waste their resources in this way nor on what basis in federal law such suits could be brought. In any event, we address today only candidates’ standing to challenge rules that, like Illinois’s, govern the counting of votes in their elections.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 1
BARRETT, J., concurring in judgment
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 24–568
MICHAEL J. BOST, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ILLINOIS
STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
[January 14, 2026]
JUSTICE BARRETT, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN joins, concurring in the judgment.
While I agree with the Court that Congressman Bost has
standing, I disagree with its reasoning. In my view, Congressman Bost has standing because he has suffered a traditional pocketbook injury, not because of his status as a
candidate.
I
The Constitution limits federal courts to deciding “Cases”
and “Controversies.” Art. III, §2. To satisfy this requirement, a plaintiff must show (among other things) that he
has suffered an actual injury—put colloquially, he must be
able to answer the basic question “ ‘What’s it to you?’ ” Ante, at 3. We give content to that maxim by requiring a plaintiff
to show a “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent”
injury. Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U. S. 398, 409
(2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). A “particularized” injury is a harm affecting a plaintiff “in a personal and individual way,” not a “generalized grievance” shared by
the public. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U. S. 330, 339, and
n. 7 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). A “concrete”
injury is a nonabstract harm of the type “that has traditionally been regarded as providing a basis for a lawsuit in English or American courts.” Id., at 340–341. And an “actual
2 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
BARRETT, J., concurring in judgment
or imminent” injury is one that is “certainly impending” rather than “speculative.” Clapper, 568 U. S., at 401.
A plaintiff must establish standing at the time of filing
and maintain it throughout litigation. Carney v. Adams,
592 U. S. 53, 59 (2020). He must support each element of
standing “with the manner and degree of evidence required
at the successive stages of the litigation.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 561 (1992). At the pleading
stage, “general factual allegations of injury resulting from
the defendant’s conduct may suffice.” Ibid.; see Spokeo, 578
U. S., at 338 (a complaint must “ ‘clearly . . . allege facts
demonstrating’ ” standing).
Pocketbook harm is a traditional Article III injury. Tyler
v. Hennepin County, 598 U. S. 631, 636 (2023). That is so
not only when a law directly imposes costs on a plaintiff,
see, e.g., McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 430–431
(1961) (profits lost from Sunday-closing law), but also when
a plaintiff “reasonably incur[s] costs to mitigate or avoid”
the “ ‘substantial risk’ ” of a harm caused by a statute, Clapper, 568 U. S., at 414, n. 5 (collecting cases). For instance, in Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, farmers of conventional alfalfa sought injunctive relief against a rule deregulating (and thus permitting) the planting of genetically
modified alfalfa. 561 U. S. 139, 153–154 (2010). The farmers “established a reasonable probability that their organic
and conventional alfalfa crops will be infected with the engineered gene” through cross-contamination. Id., at 153
(internal quotation marks omitted). And because the farmers took costly preventative measures to “minimize the likelihood of potential contamination,” they suffered an Article
III injury. Id., at 154–155; see also Virginia v. American
Booksellers Assn., Inc., 484 U. S. 383, 392 (1988) (finding
standing where regulated booksellers must incur compliance costs or risk prosecution).
Like the farmers in Monsanto, Congressman Bost alleges
that he will “reasonably incur costs to mitigate or avoid” the
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 3
BARRETT, J., concurring in judgment
“ ‘substantial risk’” of harm caused by the challenged statute. Clapper, 568 U. S., at 414, n. 5. He claims that Illinois’s ballot-receipt deadline will increase the number of
late-arriving ballots, which often “have discrepancies (e.g.,
insufficient information, missing signatures, dates, or postmarks) that need to be resolved.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 66a.
Invalid ballots, he says, will put his election at risk and
damage his reputation. To avoid these reasonably probable
harms, his campaign “has spent, and will spend, money,
time, and resources to monitor and respond as needed to
ballots received by state election officials after the national Election Day.” Id., at 65a. If poll watchers are not present
to monitor ballot counting, county officials could “accep[t]
possibly deficient ballots in bulk.” Id., at 67a. Accordingly, it is standard practice for campaigns to send poll watchers
to monitor ballot counting to ensure that any discrepancies
are resolved appropriately. See Brief for League of Women
Voters et al. as Amici Curiae 20 (calling it “political malpractice” for candidates not to monitor ballot counting in
their races). Because Congressman Bost’s expenditures
mitigate a substantial risk of harm, he has pleaded Article
III injury.*
II
Rather than take this straightforward path, the Court
charts a novel one: To challenge “the rules that govern the
counting of votes in his election,” a candidate need only allege that he is in fact a candidate in that election. Ante, at 3. The Court makes no attempt to demonstrate that the
bare fact of facing changed vote-counting rules is a traditionally recognized harm. See TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez,
*JUSTICE JACKSON says it is not reasonably probable that Congressman Bost will suffer any injury, post at 14 (dissenting opinion), implicitly rejecting the view that it is reasonable to employ poll watchers to monitor for discrepancies. But on a motion to dismiss, we credit Congressman Bost’s factual allegations and draw all inferences in his favor. 4 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
BARRETT, J., concurring in judgment
594 U. S. 413, 424–425 (2021). Nor does it grapple with Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., which holds that a plaintiff cannot
show an Article III injury by claiming only that an allegedly
unlawful practice benefits a competitor without any showing of harm to himself. 568 U. S. 85, 99 (2013). By holding
that a candidate always has an interest in challenging votecounting rules, even if those rules do not impose a competitive disadvantage on him, the Court today relieves candidates of having to show any real harm. See ante, at 4. Candidates are apparently entitled to this extraordinarily
forgiving rule because they are “not common competitors in
the economic marketplace.” Ibid.
I cannot join the Court’s creation of a bespoke standing
rule for candidates. Elections are important, but so are
many things in life. We have always held candidates to the
same standards as any other litigant. See, e.g., Davis v.
Federal Election Comm’n, 554 U. S. 724, 733–734 (2008)
(applying ordinary standing analysis to candidate challenging financial disclosure requirements); Wittman v. Personhuballah, 578 U. S. 539, 545 (2016) (applying ordinary
standing analysis to legislators running for reelection who
challenged redistricting plan); Carney, 592 U. S., at 59–60
(requiring a would-be candidate to show concrete intention
to seek office to challenge partisan-balance rule). And we
have repeatedly rejected requests to create special standing
rules for particular litigants. See, e.g., Raines v. Byrd, 521 U. S. 811, 821, 830 (1997) (legislator standing); Arizona
Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 563 U. S.
125, 134 (2011) (taxpayer standing); Lujan, 504 U. S., at
566–567 (animal-enthusiast standing); FDA v. Alliance for
Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S. 367, 392–393 (2024) (doctor
standing). I see no reason to afford candidates favored status.
Nor do the practical realities of running for office warrant
special treatment for candidates. As Congressman Bost
concedes, “candidates could probably articulate their injury
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 5
BARRETT, J., concurring in judgment
in terms of a pocketbook injury” “in many election law
cases.” Brief for Petitioners 21. So in addition to being unmoored from precedent, the Court’s broader rule is unnecessary on Congressman Bost’s own telling.
* * *
We need not deviate from established standing principles
to resolve this case in Congressman Bost’s favor. I respectfully concur only in the judgment.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 1
JACKSON, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 24–568
MICHAEL J. BOST, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ILLINOIS
STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
[January 14, 2026]
JUSTICE JACKSON, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR joins,
dissenting.
Under our standing precedents, this is an easy case. Article III requires plaintiffs to assert and establish an “injury in fact”—i.e., the “invasion of a legally protected interest”
that is both “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560
(1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). Congressman
Bost has failed to allege that the election-related law he
seeks to challenge has caused him to suffer any injury that
satisfies those requirements.
A majority of the Court nevertheless concludes that Bost
has standing to sue based solely on his status as a candidate
for office. The Court thereby subtly shifts from our
longstanding actual-injury rule to a presumption that certain kinds of plaintiffs are sufficiently aggrieved to satisfy Article III standing, regardless of whether they will experience any particularized harm. In my view, this dubious departure from settled law disregards both the equal treatment of litigants and judicial restraint.
JUSTICE BARRETT rightly rejects today’s bespoke candidate-standing rule. See ante, at 4 (opinion concurring in
judgment). Yet her pocketbook theory would allow political
candidates to spend their way past Article III’s injury-infact requirement, despite our clear admonition that
2 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
JACKSON, J., dissenting
plaintiffs “cannot manufacture standing by choosing to
make expenditures based on hypothetical future harm that
is not certainly impending.” Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA,
568 U. S. 398, 402 (2013).
In the end, I would not allow Bost’s suit to move forward
on grounds that we have deemed insufficient to establish
Article III standing for other plaintiffs. Because I believe
that political candidates can and should be held to the same
actual-injury requirements as other litigants, I respectfully
dissent.
I
Any litigant who invokes the judicial power of the federal
courts under Article III “must establish that he has a ‘personal stake’ in the alleged dispute, and that the alleged injury suffered is particularized as to him.” Raines v. Byrd,
521 U. S. 811, 819 (1997). Today, however, the Court essentially pronounces that this foundational principle no
longer applies to candidates for elected office. It declares
that all candidates have standing to challenge election regulations in light of their interest in a “fair process.” Ante, at 4. No matter that, in a democratic society like ours, the
interest in a fair electoral process is common to all members
of the voting public. The Court thus ignores a core constitutional requirement while unnecessarily thrusting the Judiciary into the political arena.
A
The majority’s primary failing is its refusal to recognize
that the alleged injury it identifies—the suffering that results from an unfair electoral process—is not particular to
candidate-plaintiffs. The importance of the particularity
requirement cannot be overstated, for it is this requirement
that “prevents the judicial process from becoming no more
than a vehicle for the vindication of the value interests of
concerned bystanders.” United States v. Students
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 3
JACKSON, J., dissenting
Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP), 412
U. S. 669, 687 (1973). Such a result is incompatible with
our constitutional design, which recognizes that “ ‘abstract
questions of wide public significance’ ” are “most appropriately addressed in the representative branches.” Valley
Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation
of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 475 (1982) (quoting
Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 500 (1975)). In other words,
the particularity requirement ensures that the Judiciary
stays in its proper lane, leaving to the people’s representatives the prerogative to decide questions of broad importance in the absence of a litigant with a “direct stake in
the outcome.” Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 740
(1972). As such, litigants without a direct stake—i.e., those
who assert no more than “generalized grievances about the
conduct of government”—cannot satisfy the “case or controversy aspect of standing.” Valley Forge, 454 U. S., at 479
(internal quotation marks omitted).
Today’s decision all but ignores the particularity requirement and the democracy-preserving function that it serves.
This case, the Court says, involves “[a]n unlawful election
rule,” which necessarily injures candidates’ “interest in a
fair process.” Ante, at 4. But, even assuming that Illinois’s
rule is unlawful (as we must for standing purposes), the
Court makes no real attempt to explain how that injury is
particular to candidates; to the contrary, it acknowledges
that voters, too, have a stake in a fair electoral process. See ante, at 5. Yet the Court insists that a candidate’s interest
is “undeniably different” from that of a voter’s, because it is the candidate—and not the voter—who “compete[s]” in an
election. Ibid.
That assessment gets the significance of the relative interests exactly backward. A public office is a public trust,
and an election for that office is the ultimate expression of
the will of the people, not a mere competition to be won or
lost. In the Court’s telling, though, elections are a glorified 4 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
JACKSON, J., dissenting
national pastime—the competitors’ success is the main objective, and voters are mere bystanders who simply “lend
their support.” Ibid. This depiction drastically devalues
the role elections play in a democratic society.1
The Court similarly misrepresents the harm that occurs
when unlawful election rules “erod[e] public confidence [in]
the election results.” Ibid. To be sure, a tainted election
can hurt a candidate if it undermines the public’s perception of that officeholder’s legitimacy and harms his reputation in the process (assuming he makes that allegation).2
But voters suffer too—and arguably even more so—when
their fellow citizens lose confidence in the results of an election. Indeed, the same loss of faith the majority counts as
injurious to candidates could be a fatal blow to the public’s
interest in democratic governance.3
Batting away these foundational truths, the Court finds
“no occasion to theorize” about the relative significance of
voters’ and candidates’ shared interest in free and fair elections. Ibid. But it is the Court’s own analysis—i.e., its
1 Lest we forget: In a democracy, elections are not mere candidate-centered bouts; rather, they determine the fate of the community. Elections, after all, are the mechanism through which We the People (exercising our collective will) decide who gets to represent us. In a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, “those who compete” in an election, ante, at 5, are ultimately vying to become public servants—not simply winners of a game. Thus, it is misleading to suggest that those who “claim the right to voice the will of the people,” ibid., have an exclusive interest in electoral fairness. To the contrary, those “who lend their support” as voters, ibid., are the primary stakeholders.
2 Here, Congressman Bost has not alleged that Illinois’s ballot-receipt
deadline will undermine the public’s perception of the legitimacy of any future win.
3 “[I]f a State chose to conduct its election by, say, flipping a coin,” what
is lost is not just a candidate’s “opportunity to compete for the people’s support.” Ante, at 4. Another injurious consequence would be the lack of any incentive to vote, leading to both the elimination of democratic participation and the election of candidates who have no reason to operate for the public good—in short, the destruction of democracy.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 5
JACKSON, J., dissenting
purported distinction between the interests of candidates
and voters in fair election outcomes—that raises the comparative question, not mine.
In any event, I agree that we need not “theorize” about
the significance of these interests, for one thing is indisputably clear: Our democracy was founded on the “self-evident”
truth that a government is legitimate only insofar as it derives its “just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Declaration of Independence ¶2. Candidates come and go,
but the voters’ collective interest in the “right to elect legislators in a free and unimpaired fashion” is enduring and
indispensable. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 562 (1964).
Against this backdrop, the Court’s effort to isolate and elevate a candidate’s “distinct” interest in electoral integrity, ante, at 5, falls flat.
For today’s standing purposes, the key realization is that,
in a democracy, the (existential) interest in fair and accurate elections is common to all members of the voting public. I acknowledge that “[t]hose who spend untold time and
resources seeking to claim the right to voice the will of the
people,” ibid.—candidates—have a particularized interest
in getting the job. That is precisely why candidates do have
Article III standing if an unlawful election rule creates a
substantial risk of harm to that interest (the risk of an election loss). But when what is at stake is the overall fairness
of the electoral process, it is the people’s shared interest in democracy itself (and not just the candidate’s job prospects)
that hangs in the balance.
B
The Court’s standing analysis elides all this by employing
the commonsense intuition that, “[w]in or lose, candidates
suffer when the process departs from the law.” Ante, at 4.
But how is that a particularized injury? Anyone and everyone who is governed by law is similarly harmed by any departure from the law’s requirements. Moreover, this Court
6 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
JACKSON, J., dissenting
has repeatedly instructed that litigants “may not sue based
only on an ‘asserted right to have the Government act in
accordance with law.’ ” FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic
Medicine, 602 U. S. 367, 381 (2024) (quoting Allen v.
Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 754 (1984)); see also Massachusetts
v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 488 (1923) (rejecting theory that
taxpayers have standing to challenge an allegedly unlawful
government action requiring the use of public funds because “[t]he party who invokes the [judicial] power must be
able to show . . . that he has sustained or is immediately in
danger of sustaining some direct injury. . . , and not merely
that he suffers in some indefinite way in common with people generally”).
Here, the generalized nature of the “fair process” harm is
indisputable: If Illinois’s vote-count rule is unlawful, all
participants in the electoral process—not only candidates
for office but also every voter who has cast a ballot in the
election—would be deprived “of a fair process and an accurate result.” Ante, at 4. But, as this Court has time and
again explained, such an assertion of injury “amount[s] to
little more than [an] attemp[t ] ‘to employ a federal court as a forum in which to air . . . generalized grievances about the conduct of government.” Valley Forge, 454 U. S., at 483
(omission in original) (quoting Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83,
106 (1968)).
Indeed, our standing precedents make crystal clear that,
absent a showing of particularized harm, these sorts of fairprocess grievances must be resolved through the political
branches. For it is in those branches “where democratic debate can occur and a wide variety of interests and views can
be weighed.” Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S.,
at 380. By contrast, the exercise of judicial power, “which
can so profoundly affect the lives, liberty, and property of
those to whom it extends,” is a “tool of last resort,” to be
invoked only “when the question is raised by a party whose
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 7
JACKSON, J., dissenting
interests entitle him to raise it.” Valley Forge, 454 U. S., at 473–474 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Finding no support for a nonparticularized “fair process”
harm in either our precedents or the practices of the lower
courts, the Court pivots to an analogy. It suggests that, as
a candidate running for office who has been told that votes
will continue to be counted after election day, Bost is no different from a competitor in a 100-meter dash whose race is
“unexpectedly extended to 105 meters.” Ante, at 6. According to the majority, each runner in the newly announced
105-meter race would obviously suffer, regardless of
whether he “expects to finish strong.” Ibid. But whether
any given runner is harmed by this rule change depends on
a number of factors particular to each competitor, none of
which the majority deigns to identify. And, indeed, it is far
from obvious that a runner with a track record like Bost’s—
who expects to win both races based on sound statistical
analyses of his current and past performance—would have
the injury that begets Article III standing to involve the Judiciary in this rule-change dispute.
Despite the imprecision of its analysis, the Court is clear
about one thing today: Pinpointing the actual harm to candidates for elected office is no longer necessary for standing purposes. Its remarkable holding jettisons the injury-infact requirement entirely. Forget injury; political candidates need only have “a concrete and particularized interest
in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral
prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns.” Ante, at
9 (emphasis added). As JUSTICE BARRETT explains, see
ante, at 4 (opinion concurring in judgment), this harm-free
Article III standing rule finds no support in our precedents.4 ——————
4 The Government, participating as an amicus in support of petitioners, also suggests that our typical Article III standing requirements do not apply here, though for a different reason than the Court. In its view, we can presume that Bost has identified an injury in fact because he is 8 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
JACKSON, J., dissenting
C
Perhaps sensing the weakness of its novel, harm-free
standing analysis, the Court resorts to policy arguments to
bolster it. It worries that requiring candidates to establish
that they might lose the election will “channel” lawsuits “to
shortly before election day—or worse, after.” Ante, at 7.
“Only then,” the Court says, will a candidate really know
whether an election regulation has impacted his race. Ibid.
And, worse still, a candidate trying to make such a showing
could find himself in the “awkward” position of having to
“plead and prove that voters who take advantage of the
challenged rule will favor his rivals.” Ante, at 8–9.
The relevance of these practical concerns is unclear. We
have traditionally viewed Article III standing as an “irreducible” constitutional minimum, “not merely a troublesome hurdle to be overcome.” Valley Forge, 454 U. S., at
472, 476. As such, Article III’s “essential and unchanging”
constitutional mandates do not ordinarily yield to our policy
judgment about when it would be most convenient for
courts to hear particular kinds of suits. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S., at 380 (internal quotation marks
omitted).
the “direct object” of Illinois’s ballot-receipt deadline. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 21. To be sure, when a plaintiff is the direct “object” of “government action or inaction,” there “is ordinarily little question that the action or inaction has caused him injury.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 561–562 (1992). But Bost is not a direct object of the Illinois rule at issue. The rule regulates the conduct of voters and election officials, dictating how and when ballots are cast and counted. See Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 10, §5/19–8(c) (West Supp. 2025) (“Each vote by mail voter’s ballot that is mailed to an election authority and postmarked no later than election day, but that is received . . . before the close of the period for counting provisional ballots cast at that election, . . . shall be counted”). And we have recently reaffirmed that, “when (as here) a plaintiff challenges the government’s ‘unlawful regulation (or lack of regulation) of someone else,’ ” standing “ ‘is ordinarily substantially more difficult to establish.’ ” FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S. 367, 382 (2024) (quoting Lujan, 504 U. S., at 562).
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 9
JACKSON, J., dissenting
In any event, under our usual standing rules, a candidate
(and our democracy) need not be put in the awkward position of waiting until the eve of an election or predicting an
electoral loss with 100% accuracy. Our cases recognize that
a litigant who bases standing on “[a]n allegation of future
injury” need only assert a “substantial risk that the harm
will occur.” Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U. S.
149, 158 (2014) (emphasis added; internal quotation marks
omitted). The substantial-risk standard is not especially
exacting; it demands more than mere conjecture, but it does
not require plaintiffs to prove that the alleged future harm
is “literally certain” to occur. Clapper, 568 U. S., at 414,
n. 5.
Accordingly, at the motion-to-dismiss stage, a candidate
need only plausibly allege that the challenged regulation
creates a substantial risk of an election loss—he need not
predict with certainty that the rule will cause him to lose.
See, e.g., Texas Democratic Party v. Benkiser, 459 F. 3d 582,
587 (CA5 2006) (concluding that a candidate who alleged
that governmental action “threaten[ed] his election prospects” had established standing). Alternatively, a candidate whose win is more secure could allege a substantial
risk of some other concrete and particularized harm stemming from the challenged rule’s application, such as an existing or imminent financial or reputational injury. Cf. Federal Election Comm’n v. Ted Cruz for Senate, 596 U. S. 289,
296 (2022) (recognizing a winning candidate’s $10,000 expenditure as a “pocketbook harm” that “constitute[d] an injury in fact”); Meese v. Keene, 481 U. S. 465, 473–474 (1987)
(finding standing where a candidate had “alleged and
demonstrated” that a challenged disclosure rule would,
among other harms, “adversely affect his reputation in the
community”).
Though it may be more difficult for candidates to satisfy
the “substantial risk” standard at later stages of litigation, it is nowhere near impossible. It does not require a
10 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
JACKSON, J., dissenting
candidate to prove that the challenged rule guarantees his
loss; it simply requires him to marshal enough evidence
from which a court could conclude that the challenged rule
presents a significant threat to his victory, his pocketbook,
or his reputation.
As we have recognized in other contexts, that sort of evidence may include an evaluation of the facts on the ground
and statistical analyses. See, e.g., Department of Commerce
v. New York, 588 U. S. 752, 767–768 (2019) (concluding that
States had standing to challenge the inclusion of a citizenship question on the census, in light of statistical evidence
“establish[ing] that noncitizen households have historically
responded to the census at lower rates” and “that if noncitizen households [were] undercounted by as little as 2%”
those States would “lose out on federal funds”). In the electoral arena, preelection polling will often provide a relevant data set. Candidates could also rely on historical data
about how a particular rule has affected those who have run
similar campaigns in the past. And the relative advantages
or disadvantages of various electoral processes can be scrutinized by the kinds of experts who are routinely hired to
make these sorts of assessments. See, e.g., Meese, 481 U. S.,
at 473–474 (finding standing where a candidate submitted
“detailed affidavits, including one describing the results of
an opinion poll and another containing the views of an experienced political analyst” to show that a challenged disclosure requirement “would substantially harm his chances
for reelection” (footnote omitted)).
The Court’s suggestion that it is beyond a judge’s competency to evaluate whether an election rule causes a substantial risk of electoral loss, ante, at 7–9, is therefore both puzzling and unfounded. A “substantial risk” of future
harm has been the Article III imminent-injury standard for
decades. See Clapper, 568 U. S., at 414–415, n. 5 (collecting
cases applying this standard). And federal courts, including this one, have routinely applied that standard in a
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 11
JACKSON, J., dissenting
variety of circumstances—essentially whenever a plaintiff
maintains that state action is likely to harm him in the future. See, e.g., Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U. S. 43, 57–58
(2024) (First Amendment challenge related to social media
content moderation); Department of Commerce, 588 U. S.,
at 766–767 (Administrative Procedure Act challenge to
changes to the census); Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed
Farms, 561 U. S. 139, 153–155 (2010) (environmental challenge to regulations of genetically modified crops).
In short, our precedents establish that certainty of future
harm is not the benchmark, as the majority suggests. Ante,
at 7. Rather, all that is required is a plausible allegation
(eventually followed by proof ) of a substantial risk of future injury.
Bost fails to clear even that low bar. At most, he alleges
that he “risk[s] injury if untimely and illegal ballots cause
[him] to lose [his] election” or “reduc[e ]” his “margin of victory” in a way that harms his reputation. App. to Pet. for
Cert. 68a–69a (emphasis added). But his complaint and
supplemental declaration include no—zero—allegations to
support an inference that such risk exists, or is at all substantial, in his own case; for example, he never alleges that
untimely ballots are more likely to break against him and
in favor of his opponent. Indeed, Bost appears to have disclaimed the need to include any such allegations before the
Court of Appeals, where he argued that his “stated injury
is not based on a risk of losing the election” and that “[n]either a change to his electoral fortunes nor any other effect
is necessary to afford him standing.” Brief for PlaintiffsAppellants in No. 23–2644 (CA7), p. 19. The Court today
accepts that unprecedented contention, which flies in the
face of both the particularity requirement and the substantial-risk standard.
Alarmingly, today’s ruling also has far-reaching implications beyond Bost’s election, since dispensing with our
usual standing requirements opens the floodgates to
12 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
JACKSON, J., dissenting
exactly the type of troubling election-related litigation the
Court purportedly wants to avoid. For example, under the
Court’s new harm-free candidate-standing rule, an electoral candidate who loses in a landslide can apparently still
file a disruptive legal action in federal court after the election is over. All he must do is assert that an election rule
somehow deprived him of a fair process—even if that rule
played no role in the election’s outcome or otherwise caused
him harm. That possibility is especially concerning given
the host of election-related regulations that States must
promulgate when exercising their constitutional duty to set
the “Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections.” Art.
I, §4, cl. 1. States regulate everything from a ballot’s chain of custody to its format—all of which the majority would
permit candidates to challenge in court without offering any
theory of how such rules harm them personally. See Brief
for District of Columbia et al. as Amici Curiae 16–22 (describing the myriad state regulations at risk under Bost’s
broad theory of standing).5
It is impossible to square this outcome with the practical
concerns the Court identifies. See, e.g., ante, at 7 (emphasizing that “ ‘federal courts should ordinarily not alter the
election rules on the eve of an election’ ” (quoting Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee,
589 U. S. 423, 424 (2020) (per curiam))). Ironically, then, it is the Court’s new and generous candidate-standing rule
that invites late-breaking judicial intervention into the
5 The Court’s suggestion that these sorts of challenges are unlikely,
ante, at 10, n. 7, is belied by recent experience. See, e.g., League of Women Voters of Fla. Inc. v. Florida Secretary of State, 66 F. 4th 905, 929 (CA11 2023) (considering a challenge to a “drop-box provision” that governed “the chain of custody of the ballot” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Kim v. Hanlon, 99 F. 4th 140, 147, 153 (CA3 2024) (noting that “[c]ourts often decide ballot-design cases” in considering a challenge to “the form of election ballots” in the State of New Jersey). Without a harm-based standing rule for candidates, these kinds of challenges will undoubtedly become even more common.
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 13
JACKSON, J., dissenting
political process in a manner that is “as practically untenable as it is undemocratic.” Ante, at 7.
II
While more tethered to our standing precedents, JUSTICE
BARRETT’s pocketbook-injury theory is also insufficient to
support Bost’s standing. This is because it is well settled—
in light of our decision in Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568
U. S. 398—that plaintiffs “cannot manufacture standing by
choosing to make expenditures based on hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.” Id., at 402.
Bost’s allegations establish only a hypothetical future
harm, even when crediting them as true and drawing all
reasonable inferences in his favor.
In Clapper, we held that a group of attorneys and humanrights organizations lacked standing to challenge a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) “authorizing the surveillance of individuals who are not
‘United States persons’ and are reasonably believed to be
located outside the United States.” Id., at 401 (footnote
omitted) (quoting 50 U. S. C. §1881a). The attorneys and
organizations premised their standing argument on the
possibility that their clients would be surveilled under
FISA. 568 U. S., at 406. That possibility, they said, required them to take “costly and burdensome measures” to
protect their privacy, including avoiding “certain e-mail and
phone conversations” and traveling to their clients “so that
they [could] have in-person conversations.” Id., at 415. Yet
the attorneys and organizations “ha[d] no actual
knowledge” of the Government’s surveillance practices under FISA. Id., at 411. They “merely speculate[d] and
ma[de] assumptions about whether their communications”
would be targeted. Ibid. As a result, the measures they
took to avoid surveillance could not satisfy Article III’s requirements. Id., at 416. Or, put differently, they could not
“manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on
14 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
JACKSON, J., dissenting
themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm
that [was] not certainly impending.” Ibid.
Bost’s alleged pocketbook injury is no different. He fears
that Illinois’s ballot-receipt deadline will allow the State to count illegal votes, which in turn might injure him by costing him an election or at least resulting in a diminished
margin of victory that somehow damages his reputation.
Brief for Petitioners 18. He has therefore hired poll watchers to monitor the State’s vote counting for an additional
two weeks. But, in the absence of any allegation establishing that he actually faces a substantial risk of losing the
election or having his margin of victory diminished in a
meaningful way, Bost has taken those precautions based on
the mere (and by all accounts remote) possibility that such
harms will otherwise materialize. At bottom, then, Bost
fears a “hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.” 568 U. S., at 416. So any additional expenses
Bost incurs to ward off that harm is not a proper basis for
standing. Ibid.
Bost nevertheless insists that his case is distinct from
Clapper because he knows that the State will apply its 14-day ballot-receipt deadline in his next election. That fact,
he says, sets him apart from the attorneys and humanrights organizations in Clapper, who could not prove that
the Federal Government would invoke FISA against them
or their clients. Stated differently, Bost is certain that the State will apply the ballot-receipt deadline, whereas the
Clapper plaintiffs could only speculate as to FISA’s future
application.
This contention misunderstands Clapper’s standing rule
and how it applied in that case. In Clapper, the harm the
plaintiffs feared (unlawful surveillance) would occur at the
precise moment that FISA was invoked against them or
their clients. And because the asserted injury stemmed directly from the application of the challenged regulation, the
risk of future harm was tied directly to the risk of FISA’s
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 15
JACKSON, J., dissenting
future application to the plaintiffs. It mattered, then, that
the possibility of FISA’s application was only speculative.
Bost’s feared injury—the one he seeks to spend his way
out of—is different in this respect, but it is no less speculative. The harm Bost fears does not stem from the mere (certain) application of the State’s 14-day ballot-receipt deadline. Rather, what triggers Bost’s spending is fear of a lost
election or the diminution of his reputation—i.e., the possible downstream effects of the challenged election rule.
Thus, even though the rule’s application is certain, the
feared harm is not; Bost has only speculated as to the possibility that this future, downstream harm will occur.
This means that Bost’s pocketbook injury is similar in all
relevant respects to that presented by the plaintiffs in Clapper: He is spending money to ward off speculative future
injury. His case differs from Clapper only insofar as the
source of the harm he is seeking to alleviate is not the (uncertain) application of the regulation itself, but the (uncertain) effects of that regulation. In other words, both Bost
and the plaintiffs in Clapper spent money to mitigate a risk
of injury that was only theoretical, not substantial. And
neither can leverage unnecessary expenditures into Article
III standing.
Our decision in Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms,
561 U. S. 139, is not to the contrary. There, we held that
farmers who “established a reasonable probability” that genetically modified alfalfa seeds would cross-contaminate
their organic alfalfa had standing based on the costly
measures they had taken to protect their crops. Id., at 153–
155 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The key phrase from our Monsanto opinion is “reasonable
probability.” The farmers did not simply point to a hypothetical possibility of cross-contamination. Instead, their
allegations established that their fear of future harm was
reasonable. In particular, the farmers explained that modified alfalfa seeds were actually “ ‘being planted in all the
16 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
JACKSON, J., dissenting
major alfalfa seed production areas with little regard to contamination to non-GMO seed production fields.’ ” Id., at
154, n. 3. The farmers also emphasized “ ‘the compact geographic area of the prime alfalfa seed producing areas and
the fact that pollen is distributed by bees that have large
natural range of activity.’ ” Ibid. Accordingly, they reasonably predicted that “ ‘the genetic contamination of the [modified] seed [would] rapidly spread through the seed growing
regions.’ ” Ibid.
Bost’s allegations, by comparison, fall well short of
demonstrating a reasonable probability of future harm absent costly mitigation efforts. He alleges only that he
“risk[s] injury if untimely and illegal ballots cause [him] to lose” or diminish his “margin of victory,” leading “to the
public perception that [his] constituents have concerns
about [his] job performance.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 68a–
69a. Examined closely, Bost’s averment is that, if the vote
counting continues, he could receive fewer votes, which
could cause him to lose the election or could damage his
reputation among voters and donors. No other allegations
make this harmful outcome likely or otherwise substantiate
the risk that any of these potential problems might actually
occur.
JUSTICE BARRETT nevertheless suggests that the forgiving standard for motions to dismiss is enough to get Bost
over the line. See ante, at 3, n. (opinion concurring in judgment). But that standard cannot benefit a plaintiff like
Bost, who is “armed with nothing more than conclusions.”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U. S. 662, 678–679 (2009).6 Bost’s
6 I do not reject the view that it is reasonable to employ poll watchers
to monitor discrepancies in the vote count as a general matter. See ante, at 3, n. (BARRETT, J., opinion concurring in judgment). But a proper Article III standing analysis requires us to answer a different question: whether it was reasonable for this particular plaintiff to voluntarily incur such costs under the circumstances presented in his case. At the motion-to-dismiss stage, we are only obligated to credit the plausible
Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 17
JACKSON, J., dissenting
complaint identifies only a “speculative chain of possibilities,” and, as such, his allegations are insufficient to establish a reasonable probability of future harm. Clapper, 568
U. S., at 414.7
In an ironic twist, the majority correctly rejects JUSTICE
BARRETT’s pocketbook-injury theory analysis due to its
speculative nature. It rightly acknowledges that a plaintiff
who relies on costs to establish standing “must incur those
costs to ‘mitigate or avoid’ a ‘substantial risk’ of some independent harm.” Ante, at 9 (quoting Clapper, 568 U. S., at
414, n. 5). And it recognizes that the independent harm
Bost asserts—“discrepancies in late-arriving ballots”—
amounts to “conjecture,” with “little support in the pleadings.” Ante, at 9. But rather than follow that observation
where it leads, the majority crafts a new candidate-only
standing rule, ignoring the patently speculative nature of
Bost’s harm based on Bost’s more generalized “interest in a
fair process.” Ante, at 4.
With respect to the majority’s harm-free, fair-process
standing theory, JUSTICE BARRETT has the better of that argument. She correctly observes that the majority’s
assertions of fact the plaintiff makes to support that inference. We do not have to accept Bost’s bald contention that he has to hire poll watchers in light of Illinois’s rule (or make the inference that it is reasonable for him to do so during the upcoming election); indeed, in my view, accepting that conclusory contention abdicates our responsibility to actually evaluate the sufficiency of the plaintiff ’s allegations.
7 Bost’s concern that his reputation might be damaged even if he
wins—due to a diminished margin of victory, see Brief for Petitioners 18—is especially difficult to fathom, much less designate as plausible. I suppose it is possible that voters and donors will think less of Bost as an official if he wins by 74% of the vote instead of 75%, regardless of his performance while in office. See 114 F. 4th 634, 642 (CA7 2024) (case below) (observing that Bost won the 2022 election with 75% of the vote). But that result is neither obvious nor intuitive. In fact, without more specific allegations, one might just as easily speculate that a closer race would benefit Bost, as it could generate more donations and enthusiasm among his core supporters.
18 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
JACKSON, J., dissenting
conclusion relieves Bost “of having to show any real harm”
and fails to hold him to the same standards that we apply
to all other litigants. Ante, at 4 (opinion concurring in judgment). But, given the weaknesses of Bost’s allegations,
JUSTICE BARRETT’s standing theory would also unjustly
benefit Bost, by permitting him to voluntarily spend his
way into a federal forum absent any reasonable assertion
that the challenged rule (as opposed to his own unsubstantiated fears and spending proclivities) has caused him to
suffer an injury in fact.
III
Forty-some years ago, in Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S.
95 (1983), this Court considered whether a plaintiff had
standing to challenge the Los Angeles Police Department’s
repeated use of life-threatening chokeholds on civilians who
posed no threat of violence. Id., at 105. The plaintiff in that case, Adolph Lyons, suffered such a chokehold at the hands
of police, “rendering him unconscious and causing damage
to his larynx.” Id., at 97–98. Fearing that he would again
be subjected to a life-threatening chokehold, Lyons filed a
lawsuit seeking an injunction that would bar the future use
of that technique against civilians who posed no risk to officer safety. Id., at 98.
We rejected Lyons’s legal action on standing grounds,
holding that he had failed to establish a “real and immediate threat” of future harm. Id., at 105. None of Lyons’s
appeals to fairness or common sense sufficed to persuade a
majority of this Court that he had Article III standing. It
did not matter, for instance, that Lyons had almost died
from an illegal chokehold only five months prior to filing his complaint. See ibid. Nor did it matter that “no less than
16 persons ha[d] died following the use of a chokehold by an
LAPD police officer” in the preceding decade. Id., at 115–
116 (Marshall, J., dissenting). Because those “odds” did not
suggest a substantial risk of harm to Lyons in the future,
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JACKSON, J., dissenting
we said, he was not entitled to sue for injunctive relief. Id., at 108 (majority opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted). So, despite the grievous wrong and physical harm that
Lyons (and others like him) had suffered, we “decline[d] the
invitation to slight the preconditions” of Article III. Id., at 112.8
If only the Lyons Court had seen fit to create the sort of
harm-free, status-based standing rule that the majority
adopts today. The majority’s reasoning—leading to today’s
holding that “[c]andidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes
in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm
their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns,” ante, at 9—would have been useful to Lyons. Lyons was a Los Angeles resident who had been unfairly targeted by police violence in the past and who wished to move
freely about in the community. Armed with today’s decision, Lyons might have successfully relied upon that status
to claim a “concrete and particularized interest” in the rules that governed police officers’ encounters with certain community residents, regardless of whether such police practices would have harmed him in the future.
8 Contemporary commentators predicted that our decision in Lyons
would close the door to “a broad range of analogous lawsuits” aimed at systemic misconduct and abuse on the part of law enforcement. R. Fallon, Of Justiciability, Remedies, and Public Law Litigation: Notes on the Jurisprudence of Lyons, 59 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1, 71–72 (1984). That prediction proved accurate. Today, courts routinely rely on Lyons to deny plaintiffs standing to seek injunctions against future police behavior. See, e.g., J. W. ex rel. Tammy Williams v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 904 F. 3d 1248, 1267 (CA11 2018) (per curiam); Shain v. Ellison, 356 F. 3d 211, 216 (CA2 2004); Whitfield v. Ridgeland, 876 F. Supp. 2d 779, 787– 788 (SD Miss. 2012); see also Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, 606 U. S. ___, ___ (2025) (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring) (slip op., at 4) (concluding that, under Lyons, Latino plaintiffs who were “stopped for immigration questioning allegedly without reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence” lacked standing to seek an injunction).
20 BOST v. ILLINOIS STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
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But the Lyons standing rule focused on actual injury: We
emphasized that a plaintiff must assert (and, ultimately,
prove) that the allegedly unlawful practice risks injuring
him in a concrete and particularized manner in the future.
The bare assertion of an interest in general fairness, absent
the showing of any real and immediate harm, is apparently
cognizable only if asserted by candidates for office.
* * *
I am all for simplifying our standing law. See ante, at 10.
But I am against doing so selectively; either Article III
standing requires an actual or imminent injury in fact that
is particularized to the plaintiff, or it does not. Bost has
plainly failed to allege facts that support an inference of
standing under our established precedents. By carving out
a bespoke rule for candidate-plaintiffs—granting them
standing “to challenge the rules that govern the counting of
votes,” simply and solely because they are “candidate[s]” for
office, ibid.—the Court now complicates and destabilizes
both our standing law and America’s electoral processes.