Full name: Brnovich, Attorney General of Arizona, et al v. Democratic National Committee et al
Samuel AlitoAmy Coney BarrettNeil GorsuchBrett KavanaughJohn G. RobertsClarence ThomasStephen BreyerElena KaganSonia Sotomayor Note: Court justices do not represent any political party. The color of each judge's name represents the political party of the president who appointed the judge.
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Loosened restrictions imposed by 1965 Voting Rights Act
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act can be circumvented based on a subjective evaluation of other available voting methods - as long as the changes to a state's law do not explicitly discriminate against a particular race.
How did this case come about?
This lawsuit claimed that two provisions of Arizona voting law violated Section 2 of the Voting Right's Act:
Arizona requires that voters who vote in person do so at their assigned precinct. If they vote at a different precinct, their vote likely will not be counted.
It also is a crime for anyone other than a member of a voter's family or household or the voter's caregiver to collect their early ballot.
Alito: State interests override small inconvenience
In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the policies do not violate the Voting Rights Act because they were not enacted with a racially discriminatory intent.
Writing that "Arizona law generally makes it very easy to vote," he listed methods such as voting by mail and early voting.
The two restrictions have "small disparate impacts on members of minority groups," he wrote.
While the restrictions may be a burden, every voting rule imposes a burden of some sort, Alito wrote.
"Mere inconvenience cannot be enough to demonstrate a violation of Section 2." Courts must consider a state's entire system of voting when assessing a burden, he wrote.
The majority opinion also stated that a state's interests need to be considered - including the prevention of fraud. Even without evidence of fraud in Arizona, "a state may take action to prevent election fraud without waiting for it to occur and be detected within its own borders," Alito wrote.
Kagan: Laws create unequal access to voting
In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that Section 2 is deliberately broad, and that courts need to focus on how a state's law affects minority voting.
"Section 2 allows no safe harbors for election rules resulting in disparate voting opportunities," she wrote.
The Arizona restrictions do create a racial disparity, Kagan said. The "out-of-precinct" restriction results in more African American and Hispanic voters' ballots being uncounted. One reason, she wrote, is that Arizona moves polling places in African American and Hispanic neighborhoods far more often than in white ones.
Rural Native American voters - more predominant in Arizona than in other states - "often must travel 45 minutes to 2 hours just to get to a mailbox," she wrote. For that reason, they typically use friends and neighbors to return their ballots.
"Equal opportunity is absent when a law or practice makes it harder for members of one racial group, than for others, to cast ballots," she wrote. "
Kagen agreed that a state may enact laws to serve its interests, but "only if a less discriminatory rule will not attain the state's goal."