Supreme Court to hear Arizona voting rights case next year

By Robert Barnes
10/2/2020, 6:41:06 p.m.

The Supreme Court on Friday added a major voting rights case to its docket and will review whether Arizona laws common in other states discriminate against racial minorities.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit found that Arizona’s restrictions hurt minority voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act, although it allowed them to remain in place for the November election while litigation continued. The high court’s new term begins Monday.

Democrats had asked the Supreme Court to stay out of the fight and let the 9th Circuit’s decision stand, and fear that a contrary decision could result in a further weakening of the VRA’s protections by the increasingly conservative court. A 2013 decision by the court in Shelby County v. Holder declared unconstitutional a central component of the law.

The state laws in question ban counting ballots cast in precincts other than where the voter is assigned and restrict other people from delivering a voter’s early ballot. President Trump has denounced what he calls “ballot harvesting.”

Both restrictions are “commonplace election administration provisions used by Arizona and dozens of other States to prevent multiple voting, protect against voter intimidation, preserve the secrecy of the ballot, and safeguard election integrity,” Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) wrote in his petition to the Supreme Court.

A district judge upheld the restrictions and a panel of the 9th Circuit agreed 2 to 1. But a larger panel overturned those rulings, finding that each provision disproportionately affected Black and Hispanic voters.

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