In a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court held on Thursday that two Arizona election laws which govern how voters may cast absentee ballots and where they must vote do not violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 nor create an undue burden on minority voters.
Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion which addresses two election law challenges by the Democratic National Committee. The justices previously joined the two cases together for consideration.
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Among the issues before the Court was Arizona’s ballot harvesting law HB2023 passed by the Legislature in 2016 which prohibits organizations from collecting voters’ mail-in ballots. Otherwise known as “ballot harvesting,” it is a practice susceptible to a variety of fraudulent conduct.
HB2023 makes it a crime for any person other than a postal worker, an elections official, or a voter’s caregiver, family member, or household member to knowingly collect a voter’s early ballot.
The other law challenged by the DNC requires election officials to invalidate -or not count- ballots cast in person by a voter outside their assigned precinct if that county conducts precinct based elections.
A federal judge in Arizona upheld the two laws but a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found them to be unlawful. In Friday’s opinion, Alito wrote that the Court of Appeals “misunderstood and misapplied” part of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 when coming to its decision.
Alito’s opinion also notes the Court of Appeals “exceeded its authority in rejecting the District Court’s factual finding on the issue of legislative intent” and affirmed the federal judge’s earlier ruling that HB2023 “had not been enacted with discriminatory intent.”
The opinion noted third-party ballot harvesting “can lead to pressure and intimidation” and that Arizona may take action to prevent election fraud “without waiting for it to occur within its own borders,” Alito wrote.
As to the prohibition on out-of-precinct voting, Alito wrote that precinct-based voting “has a long pedigree in the United States, and the policy of not counting out-of-precinct ballots is widespread.” He also pointed out that poll workers in Arizona are trained to direct a voter to their assigned precinct.
Joining with Alito are Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Associate Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion, while Associate Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent was joined by Associate Justices Stephen Breyers and Sonio Sotomayor.
The two cases are now remanded back to the U.S. District Court for Arizona for final action consistent the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 1 opinion.
Although ballot harvesting has been treated as a myth by some in the political arena, the practice is well-documented. In 2020, Project Veritas released an undercover video showing a ballot harvester allegedly connected to Rep. Ilhan Omar exchanging $200 for a general election ballot.
Same thing happening right here in #Arizona . We have testified in the #AZ House and Senate as to how the #hispanic #latino community (mainly elderly) is being taken advantage of and bullied into handing over their #ballots to strangers posing as elections officials. https://t.co/2QIhr79NXS
— Sergio Arellano (@SurgeArellano) September 28, 2020
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