“Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito said both laws pass muster under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Ballot collection can lead to pressure and intimidation, he wrote.
And he suggested it doesn’t matter that no case of voting fraud has been linked to the practice.
“A State may take action to prevent election fraud without waiting for it to occur within its own borders,” he wrote.
Similarly, while the policy of disqualifying a ballot cast in the wrong precinct disproportionately affects voters of color, Alito said the disparity is “small in absolute terms.”
“Of the Arizona counties that reported out-of-precinct ballots in the 2016 general election, a little over 1% of Hispanic voters, 1% of African-American voters, and 1% of Native American voters who voted on election day cast an out-of-precinct ballot. For non-minority voters, the rate was around 0.5%,” he wrote. “A procedure that appears to work for 98% or more of voters to whom it applies — minority and non-minority alike — is unlikely to render a system unequally open.”
Five of the court’s nine other justices concurred or wrote their own concurrences — John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
The court’s three more liberal members dissented — Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer.”
Comment: This appears to be a profound defeat for the Left and is likely to lead to further restrictions on such practices as “ballot harvesting.” pl
Ballot harvesting is one thing. Verification that a legitimate voter actually cast the ballot is another thing. And then there’s verification that the ballot rolls accurately reflect legitimate voters.
IMO, states should move to paper ballots and hand-counting. Look at the NYC elections where test ballots got in the mix.
Has anyone done a Venn Diagram of politicians’ positions on vaccine passports and voter ID laws? I suspect the diagram for someone who wants “vaccine passports” but opposes mandatory voter ID is a single circle.
Matthew,
We have a winner! Covid Panic was one of the lynchpins of voting fraud, and mail-in voting made it a cinch.
I am from New Jersey, Land of Lord Murphy, so I know. Even though NJ is a condign BlueTick zone, it didn’t hurt that Lord Murphy shoved all of the Covid-infected into nursing homes and recuperation hospitals, killing large numbers of our most vulnerable. But it did the trick on fueling Covid Panic, and easing the way for mail-in voting. Mission accomplished.
From the syllabus:
“Second, the Court declines in these cases to announce a test to govern all VRA §2 challenges to rules that specify the time, place, or manner for casting ballots. It is sufficient for present purposes to identify certain guideposts that lead to the
Court’s decision in these cases. ”
So expect more litigation as courts attempt to find the guideposts.
Does this ruling mean states that have ballot harvesting can be sued to prevent voter fraud from occurring?
This should allow multiple lawsuits..lol
What a blessing!