State Election Law Volume Assessment (SELVA)

The State Election Litigation Volume Assessment (SELVA) is a first-of-its-kind tool for tracking, measuring, and visualizing the volume of election litigation in the United States, from routine election matters that fly under the radar to disputes that make national news.

The ELP analyzed dockets to create a persistent database of federal court election litigation in fifty states and state court litigation in thirty-eight states. For more information on court coverage and the methods used to create the SELVA project, see “Data Limitations and Methodologies” below.

Map of Election Litigation Volume

Use the map to compare the volume of election litigation across different years and states.

• Range of Multiple Years will show the total amount election litigation within your selected period, while Single Year will show the total amount of election litigation within the selected year.
• Clicking the Reset button will take the map back to its default state.
• Hovering over any state will show the count of cases in that state.
• Use the menu in the upper right hand corner to download an image of the chart or summary data.
• Use the drop-down menu to toggle between State and Federal Court maps.
• Limited State Data Available: States that do not have state court docket data available at all court levels (e.g., a state that only makes appellate court dockets available, not trial court dockets).
• No State Data Available: States that do not have readily accessible state court docket data (e.g., a state that requires membership to their state bar association to access court dockets).

Bar Graph Comparison of Election Litigation by Year

Use the bar graph to view the separate and combined volume of State and Federal Court election litigation, by year.

• Hovering over any year will show the count of cases in that year.
• Use the menu in the upper right hand corner to download an image of the chart or summary data.

Data Limitations and Methodologies

Court Coverage Limitations

The State Election Litigation Volume Assessment (SELVA) project uses docket data purchased from Docket Alarm (a vLex-FastCase product), which relies on publicly available court records. The quality and available quantity of court docket information vary widely from state to state, and the SELVA data reflects this reality. Additionally, even if docket data are available from a state, that state may not make underlying documents available, nor enough information on a given case to determine if it involves an election law dispute (and should thus be included or excluded from this data set). Some examples:

• Indiana has publicly available data for every county and appellate court to provide examples of state variation.
• Wyoming only makes its appellate court docket data available.
• Alabama does not make any state court dockets available to the public.

Data Management & Process

The ELP runs a search query on the DocketAlarm API, retrieving docket results for review. Under the supervision and direction of the ELP’s program manager, William & Mary law students review the docket results and determine if a case is an election law matter. They do so by reviewing the court filings available for that case docket, third-party sources, local journalists' reporting, and press releases related to that docket item. Once both layers of review are complete, the updated data set is uploaded.

If you notice an erroneously included (or excluded) docket entry, or experience any errors or issues, please email the ELP at elect@wm.edu.