U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of voter restrictions | Court News

The ruling may make it easier for other states to enforce rules on voting, which are widely seen as depriving black, Latino, and Native voters.

The U.S. Supreme Court approved two Republican-backed voting restrictions in Arizona. The lower court held that these restrictions placed a disproportionate burden on black, Latino, and Native American voters, leaving voting rights advocates and Democrats questioning these measures. Failed.

With a 6-3 ruling on Thursday, the court’s conservative judges held a majority and held that restrictions on third parties’ early collection of ballots and absentee ballots did not violate the Voting Rights Act. This was a landmark federal law in 1965 that prohibits voting. Racial discrimination.

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

This decision comes at a time when U.S. states are implementing a series of Republican-backed voting restrictions, after President Donald Trump lied about losing to current President Joe Biden in 2020. ) When there is widespread election fraud and irregularities.

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 practice “vote harvesting.”

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 use the new restrictions as a means to reduce voter fraud. 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. .

The Republican-controlled Arizona Senate ordered a manual counting of votes in Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, even though votes for the 2020 presidential election were certified in January [File: Matt York/Pool/AP Photo]

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.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled last year 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 Republican Donald in the state. Trump.

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 the Democrat-backed legislation on June 23 that would broadly expand voting rights and establish uniform national voting standards to counteract the new wave of voting restrictions in the Republican-led states.

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.