Supreme Court Crushes Dreams of Biden DOJ To Rollback Ballot Integrity Laws Being Passed by State Legislatures - by shipwreckedcrew - Shipwreckedcrew's Home Port

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Supreme Court Crushes Dreams of Biden DOJ To Rollback Ballot Integrity Laws Being Passed by State Legislatures

Democrats' Plan to Use Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act to Allege Racial Discrimination Are Gutted by Decision.

shipwreckedcrew 1 hr ago 1 1   The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision todayin Brnovich v. DNC, giving conservatives a major win in upholding two Arizona election statutes against challenges brought by Democrats under Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act.  The Arizona legislature had outlawed the practice of “vote harvesting” — the collection of absentee ballots for delivery to election offices by third parties — unless the third party is an election official or family member of the voter who cast the absentee ballot.  The legislature also prohibited the counting of all votes cast on a provisional ballot where the voter cast the ballot in the wrong precinct. This included votes cast in statewide races where voting in a particular precinct didn’t impact the eligibility of the voter to cast a vote in such races. The Democrats challenged these provisions on the grounds that they were racially motivated and intended by the legislature to curtail the voting of minority groups because historical evidence showed minority groups fell into the categories of people whose voting patterns would more likely adversely impacted by these prohibitions. They also submitted evidence to the court of historical racism in Arizona that impeded the rights of minorities to cast votes. Arizona prevailed on the case at the District Court level, and it initially prevailed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. But in a 7-4 en banc decision, the Ninth Circuit reversed the panel outcome and ruled in favor of the Democrat plaintiffs regarding both statutes.  The Democrats’ claims were that the “ballot harvesting” ban was enacted with a discriminatory intent to suppress minority voting and as such violated Sec. 2 and the 15th Amendment. With respect to the out-of-precinct voting ban, they claimed it had an adverse and disparate impact on minority voters who tended to mistakenly vote outside their precinct in higher percentages than non-minority voters.  The Democrats argued that the reasons put forth by the Arizona legislature for adopting the two provisions were either pretextual or irrelevant as a defense to the Sec. 2 claims.  The Court first noted this is a Sec. 2 challenge to “time, place, and manner” restrictions on voting rights, and there is a long history of Supreme Court precedent on such “time, place, and manner” restrictions. But the Court noted that this case was the first time it reviewed generally applicable “time, place, and manner” restrictions, unlike prior cases where the restrictions were aimed at a particular subset of voters.  The Court then turned to an examination of the legislative history of the Voting Rights Act Sec. 2, including amendments made by Congress in 1982.  Most notably, Justice Alito’s majority opinion focuses on the language of Sec. 2(b) which defines prohibited conduct as follows: (b) A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.   The Democrats’ arguments all claim that minority voters have “less opportunity” than non-minority voters as a result of the statutes prohibiting ballot harvesting and out-of-precinct vote counting.  But the Supreme Court addressed the question that comes before that — is the election process not “equally open to participation” by those groups? Do the statutes limiting a “manner of voting” make the voting process “less open” to in a way prohibited by Sec. 2(b)?  The Court noted that Section 2(b) requires an analysis of “the totality of circumstances” in answering that question. Any voting system is going to have some rules that must be followed to cast a valid vote. Section 2(b) must tolerate such rules in that regard and still not be found to be “less open” as a result of them. Not affording to all voters the “most convenient” means to each individual or class of voters is insufficient to state a claim under a “totality of circumstances” analysis. Whether the similar “time, place, and manner” restrictions were in use at the time Sec. 2 was amended in 1982 is relevant. Further, the extent to which the same types of restrictions are in wide use in other jurisdictions also is relevant to whether the “time, place, and manner” restrictions are “general applicability.” With respect to disparate impacts on minority voters, the Court held that the size and significance of the disparity are relevant to whether Sec. 2(b) has been violated. It is not sufficient to claim that any disparity in terms of the impact of the restriction between minority and non-minority groups is sufficient to invalidate a statute under Sec. 2(b).  During the oral argument, it was conceded by the Democrats’ attorney that the difference between minority and non-minority voters suffering vote disqualification for out-of-precinct voting was small, though it was slightly higher for minority voters. The overall number of disqualified votes was also very small as a percentage of all voters. So the disparity was a minimal difference between minorities and non-minorities under a statute that itself only impacted a very small number of voters as a percentage of all voters. Yet on such minimal numbers, the Defendants proposed to throw out the rule entirely even though Arizona had a valid legislative purpose for passing the statute. Similar disqualifying statutes regarding out-of-precinct vote-counting exist in numerous other states, and have been in place for decades without a claim being made they were racially discriminatory. The decision goes on in quite a bit more detail that I won’t take the time to cover now. But the crux of the outcome turns on the Justices’ point of view that in order to overturn a “time, place, and manner” restriction of generally applicability on the basis that it burdens one particular means of voting, it is necessary for courts to consider the entirety of the voting process adopted by the state when considering the extent of that burden.  Thus, where a State provides multiple ways to vote, any burden associated with one option cannot be evaluated without also taking into account the other available means.  I’m not going to cover Justice Kagan’s 40+ page dissent, joined in by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor. Suffice it to say I think it can be paraphrased as follows: Prior Voting Rights Act decisions of this Court have all tended towards an outcome that favored finding more and more ways for Democrats to gain more and more votes in elections at all levels so any decision of this Court that goes against that trend must be wrong. As I noted on Twitter, Justice Gorsuch wrote a very short concurring opinion, but one that plants a nuclear bomb under future litigation over Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This is important because as I wrote over at Red State, Attorney General Merrick Garland has publicly announced that the Civil Rights Division of the Democrat Justice Department will be the leading the fight for the Democrat party’s political goal of rolling back ballot integrity laws being adopted in many states. The key statutory claim behind the lawsuits it will likely bring before the November 2022 mid-term elections — like the suit it brought last week against Georgia’s new voting statutes — will all rely heavily on Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act.  What Justice Gorsuch said in his concurrence was that no party before the Court in the Arizona case had raised the issue or asked the Court to decide if there was a “private cause of action” in the Voting Rights Act. Justice Thomas joined his concurrence. But what this means is that Justice Gorsuch and Justice Thomas question whether private parties such as the DNC, ACLU, NAACP, or private individuals have standing to bring actions seeking to enforce the provisions of Sec. 2 by seeking to invalidate states’ laws under Sec. 2(b).  If the answer to that question is “No”, then only DOJ can bring such claims. This would shut down the lawfare activities of attorneys such as Mark Elias who has built an entire career on advocating the Democrat party’s political goals with regard to voting statutes.  This will impact the pace and scope of this kind of litigation. It is much easier for Elias to file a lawsuit on behalf of the DNC, and then have DOJ come along and join that suit. A ruling that private parties lack standing to bring such actions themselves would leave future litigation in the hands of the much slower moving and more deliberate DOJ to initiate on its own.  By raising it the way he did in his concurrence, Justice Gorsuch has invited any state that has been sued by Elias on behalf of the DNC or other private litigants to raise the question of their standing to do so.  The outcome in the Arizona case was 6-3, in a purely ideological divide. It is noteworthy that Justice Alito, one of the most conservative Justices on the Court — often farther to the right in his jurisprudence than is comfortable for Chief Justice Roberts — was assigned to write this opinion by the Chief Justice. The Chief Justice assigns all opinions when he votes with the majority on the outcome.  This fact is made more noteworthy by the additional fact that all five of the other conservatives joined the opinion in its entirety, and did not file concurrences saying they reached the same outcome but in a different manner.  The conservatives spoke with one voice, and in my view, that voice said loud and clear to the Democrats that the Courts will not be the venue for the Democrats to establish voting rules that they cannot get through Congress or state legislatures.  Reversing the Ninth Circuit’s activist decision telling Arizona how it must conduct its elections sends a powerful message to the Circuit Courts and District Courts that this is a subject matter they should tread lightly on.  A very big win for conservatives from the Court.    1 1

[Edmo]

Dems are furious because they’ll have to find new ways to cheat. Ballot harvesting.  GMAFB.

[f7ben]

What a great thread title retard lol

[Ez ryder]

1 hour ago, f7ben said:

What a great thread title retard lol

So you think ballot harvesting is a good thing ? 

If so go kill your self 

[f7ben]

7 hours ago, Ez ryder said:

So you think ballot harvesting is a good thing ? 

If so go kill your self 

I think literacy is a good thing

[Snake]

7 hours ago, Ez ryder said:

So you think ballot harvesting is a good thing ? 

If so go kill your self 

Ballot harvesting sucks. How you get ^^^^^^ out of Ben's post?