U.S. Supreme Court supports Arizona’s voting limit Reuters

Andrew Bell

(Reuters)-The U.S. Supreme Court approved two Republican-backed voting restrictions in Arizona on Thursday. The lower court found that these restrictions placed a disproportionate burden on black, Latino, and Native American voters and made voting rights advocates. And the Democrats who questioned these measures failed.

The 6-3 ruling with a majority of conservative judges in the court held that restrictions on the collection of votes in advance and absentee votes by third parties did not violate the Voting Rights Act, a landmark federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in 1965. In voting.

The three liberal judges of the court disagreed with this decision.

The decision was made after former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that he lost to current President Joe Biden’s election fraud and irregularities in 2020, and states are implementing a series of Republican-backed voting restrictions.

The ruling represents a victory for the Arizona Republican Party and the state’s Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich (Mark Brnovich). They appealed the ruling of the lower court, which found these restrictions to be illegal.

The case involved a 2016 Arizona law that made it a crime to provide election officials with early ballots completed by others, with the exception of family members or caregivers. Community activists sometimes collect votes to promote voting and increase voter turnout. In most states, collecting votes is legal, but there are different restrictions. Critics of the Republican Party call this approach “reaping votes.”

Another controversial restriction is Arizona’s long-term policy of discarding votes cast in electoral districts other than those designated by voters. In some places, voters’ constituencies are not the constituencies closest to their homes.

The case raised questions about whether fraud must be recorded to justify the new restrictions.

Democrats accused Republicans at the state level of enacting measures to suppress voters, making it more difficult for minorities who tend to support Democratic candidates to vote. Many Republicans see the new restrictions as a means to reduce voter fraud, and election experts say this phenomenon is rare in the United States.

The Republican Party is seeking to regain control of the U.S. Congress from the Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections.

The legal battle in Arizona involves a specific clause called Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting policies or practices that lead to racial discrimination. Since the Supreme Court repealed another part of the statute in 2013, Section 2 has been the main tool used to show that voting restricts discrimination against minorities. This part determines which states with a history of racial discrimination require federal approval to change the voting law. .

Arizona Republicans stated in court documents that voting restrictions would have partisan influence and affect elections. They told the judge in the March 2 case debate that invalidating the out-of-constituency policy would reduce the Republican election prospects because it would increase the Democratic turnout.

Republicans said that “race neutrality” rules about the time, place, or method of elections do not deprive anyone of the right to vote, and federal law does not require agreements that maximize minority participation.

The Democratic National Committee and the Arizona Democratic Party filed a lawsuit against these restrictions. Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs supports the challenge of these measures.

Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled that Arizona’s restrictions violated the Voting Rights Act, although these restrictions were still in effect in the November 3 election, when Democrat Joe Biden defeated Republicans in the election. Donald Trump. status.

The Ninth Circuit also found that “false, race-based ballot fraud charges” were used to persuade Arizona lawmakers to impose the restriction with discriminatory intent, in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on denying race-based voting rights.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democrats-voting-rights-plan-faces-long-odds-us-senate-2021-06-22 Democratic support on June 23 The legislation broadly expands voting rights and establishes a unified national voting standard to offset the new wave of state voting restrictions led by the Republican Party.

Biden severely criticized the state voting restrictions supported by the Republican Party. Biden described a measure signed by the Republican governor of Georgia in March as “atrocity” and compared it to the racist “Jim Crow” laws promulgated in southern states in the decades following the American Civil War in 1861-65. Legalize apartheid and deprive blacks of their rights.