Research by David Collins, JD ’72, was cited in a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision examining the validity of absentee ballots in federal elections.
In Watson v. Republican National Committee, the Court ruled 5-4 that federal law does not prohibit states from counting absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive after Election Day if state law permits it. The decision reversed a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and upheld Mississippi’s law allowing certain absentee ballots to be counted if they are received within five business days after Election Day.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, cited and quoted from Collins’s doctoral dissertation, entitled “Absentee Soldier Voting in Civil War Law and Politics,” in the Court’s discussion of the history of absentee voting in the United States. The opinion references Collins’s research to explain that, up until the Civil War, voting in all states was conducted in person and in local communities, where neighbors could verify voters’ identities and eligibility. The Court notes that absentee voting was an innovation of the Civil War years, when most states created legally novel ways for soldiers serving away from home to cast ballots. Collins’s dissertation comprehensively analyzes the legal and political effects of that innovation.
Collins’s work found its way into both sides of the legal dispute. The plaintiffs who challenged the Mississippi law in the Watson case cited Collins’s research in their principal brief, authored by Paul Clement. That, in combination with Justice Barrett’s citation of Collins’s work in rejecting Plaintiff’s arguments, in effect establishes his research as authoritative in its field.
At WashU Law, Collins served on the Washington University Law Quarterly and earned his Juris Doctor in 1972. He built a productive legal career as an in-house lawyer for General Motors, where he served in several roles, including GM’s corporate secretary and Saturn Corporation’s general counsel. After GM, he was Of Counsel at the national law firm of Dykema Gossett, where he headed up the firm’s corporate compliance practice. He was active for many years in the American Bar Association and served as president of the American Bar Foundation, a Chicago-based research institute affiliated with the ABA.
Pursuing a lifelong interest in history, he undertook graduate studies at Wayne State University starting late in his legal career. He earned his PhD in 2014, at the age of 69.
Congratulations to David Collins, whose scholarship continues to inform the highest levels of judicial decision-making and contribute to the development of American election law.
