The Supreme Court ruled to uphold voting restrictions in Arizona in a 6-3 decision. 
At issue in Brnovich v. DNC are two Arizona voting restrictions: the first, an out-of-precinct voting policy that prohibits the counting of ballots cast by voters in the wrong precinct.
The second is Arizona House Bill 2023, which bans certain individuals and groups—like community organizers and voter outreach organizations—from collecting ballots to deliver to polling places.
The Democratic National Committee and other groups filed suit claiming that the restrictions were racially discriminatory and violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The Supreme Court, however, found that the measures ‘do not violate §2 of the VRA,’ adding that H.B. 2023 ‘was not enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose.’
‘The spark for the debate over mail-in voting may well have been provided by one Senator’s enflamed partisanship,’ Justice Samuel Alito wrote, delivering the opinion of the court, ‘but partisan motives are not the same as racial motives.’
Alito was joined in the majority by Justices John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
The decision is a blow to voting rights efforts, effectively gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act & making it more difficult to challenge election laws considered discriminatory, even as Republican-held state legislatures introduce & pass laws to create barriers to voting.
‘What is tragic here is that the Court has (yet again) rewritten—in order to weaken—a statute that stands as a monument to America’s greatness, and protects against its basest impulses,’ Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent.
’What is tragic is that the Court has damaged a statute designed to bring about ‘the end of discrimination in voting.‘’
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
