C- There is a legal process called getting a writ of mandamus in which a court can order a public official to do something that by law they are required to do but aren’t. In this case, what Brunner was alleged to have done did not violate HAVA, as HAVA is largely silent on what states are supposed to about these government database mismatches.

However, the Ohio GOP asserted that Brunner was violating the spirit, if not the actual letter, of HAVA and asked for a restraining order against Brunner to force her to do what they wanted. All the Court said was under that particular legal theory, it is not entirely clear that Congress created in HAVA the ability for private citizen and entities to seek enforcement of HAVA through the Court instead of the U.S. Department of Justice.

It’s technical, but the Court did not even say definitively that there is no private right of action in HAVA. It’s that in order to get a restraining order, the Ohio GOP had to show that it was likely to prevail in demonstrating that HAVA creates a private right of action. Since the Court found that they may fail in proving that, they found the restraining order to be improper, but leave the actual issue of whether HAVA provides a private right of action for a later date.