WASHINGTON – Supreme Court justices on Tuesday asked skeptical questions about Arizona’s election laws in a case that emerged as an important test of the Voting Rights Act.
The case concerns the question of whether two state laws violate Article 2 of the law: one blocks the counting of ballot papers thrown in the wrong area, and the other prohibits someone other than a family member or caregiver from receiving an absent ballot paper from to collect and deliver a voter.
On the one hand, there is the state of Arizona and Republicans, who want to keep the strict laws on the book and argue that they prevent fraud. And on the other hand are the Democrats, who want the laws to be suppressed, arguing that the rules prevent voters, especially minorities, from gaining access to the ballot.
Voting restrictions are being fought in a state where Republicans have dominated local and national races for generations, but where Democrats recently gained traction and won both the U.S. Senate seats and the presidential race last year. The outcome of the case could also have far-reaching consequences for the voting laws in other states.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Amy Coney Barrett, two Republican appointments and potentially crucial votes in the case, apparently wrestled with the arguments while asking tough questions on both sides of advocates.
Roberts asked Arizona GOP advocate, who defends the laws, why it’s a bad thing that election procedures want ‘racial proportionality’.
He later pressured the Democrats’ lawyer to determine what they thought it would take to make a law unacceptable. “What if the provision leads to a 1 percent decrease in participation by minority voters – is that substantial enough?” he asked.
Barrett told the Arizona State Attorney that there were some inconsistencies in his argument and that his job was to show why the amendments retain equal “opportunities” for white and non-white voters.
But later, she appeared torn over the question of whether Arizona’s laws exceed the limit. “There’s an issue that provides the legal language and lack of clarity to try to figure out when something is going from an inconvenience to a burden,” Barrett said.
Roberts and Barrett, plus the other two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, are likely to be the deciding voices in the case.
An important moment during virtual arguments occurred when Michael Carvin, an Arizona attorney, linked the validity of the Republican-backed laws to the party’s interest in winning elections.
When asked by Barrett what the interest of the state Republican Party is in the matter, he replied: ‘Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage with respect to the Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game. And every extra voice they get through illegal interpretations of Section 2 hurts us. This is the difference between winning an election 50-49 and losing an election. ‘
None of the three Trump-appointed judges was in the Supreme Court eight years ago when he last delivered a major opinion on the Voting Rights Act, minimizing the impact of Article 5, which ensured states with a history of discrimination permission to change. voting laws. At the time, Roberts wrote the verdict of 5-4, arguing that conditions in the South had improved and that the formula for burdening the states was invalid.
Kavanaugh, who reflects on Barrett, said there was an “obscurity” about the limits of the law on voting rights.
Gorsuch sounded more sympathetic to the Arizona laws. At one point, he urged an advocate on the provisions to concede that the state has an interest in preventing vote fraud.
Judge Elena Kagan asked the lawyers about three hypothetical changes to the voting laws: the elimination of all Sunday votes (considering that Black Americans vote at much higher rates on Sunday), the move of all polling stations to an out-of-state club (and away from minorities) voting hours change after 09:00 to 17:00 (when working class voters are at work).
“These are all hypothetical objects that have never existed in the real world,” Carvin said at one point, sounding frustrated with the question.
Carvin argued that the universe of laws that are invalid under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is ‘extremely limited’. He said the question was not about ‘outcome’, but rather whether the law provided an unequal ‘opportunity’ for white and non-white voters, regardless of socio-economic differences.
A controversial moment arose when Judge Sonia Sotomayor pressed Carvin to explain why a government that strictly restricts voting options in minority areas does not deny voting rights.
“If you just can not vote for those reasons and you do not vote, you are not denied the right to vote, right?” she asked.
“I do not think anyone would say that you refused a trial at trial,” Carvin said.
“This is not a claim for proper processes,” Sotomayor interrupted. “You are denied something if you do not get the right to vote … out of circumstances that the state can easily rectify.”
