It’s an important day for voting rights, as U.S. Supreme Court judges will consider today whether to defend two Republican-supported voting restrictions in Arizona in a case that could further weaken the Voting Rights Act, a law federal law of 1965 prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.
The important case of voting rights reaches judges at a time when Republicans in many states are pursuing new restrictions after former President Donald Trump made false allegations of widespread fraud in the November 3 election he lost to Joe Biden .
Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley report to Reuters that judges will hear arguments on appeals from Arizona Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich and the state Republican Party of a lower court ruling that determined voting restrictions in issue was disproportionately taxed by black, Hispanic, and Native American voters. .
One of the measures made it a crime to provide early voting completed by another person to election officials, with the exception of family members or caregivers. The other disqualified ballots were presented in person at a venue other than the one assigned to a voter.
Community activists sometimes participate in the collection of votes to facilitate voting and increase voter turnout. The practice, which critics call “ballot collection,” is legal in most states, with varying limitations. Advocates of voting rights said that sometimes voters inadvertently voted in the wrong venue, sometimes the assigned polling place was not the closest to the voters ’home.
A broad high court ruling, which has between three and three conservative majority judges appointed by Trump, approving the restrictions, could hurt the Voting Rights Act by making it difficult to prove violations. This decision could affect the midterm elections in 2022 in which Republicans try to regain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The verdict is due in late June.
In the case of Arizona, this is Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits any rule that results in discrimination on the basis of “race or color.” This provision has been the main tool used to demonstrate that voting limits discriminate against minorities since in 2013 the court destroyed another section of the statute that determined which states with a history of racial discrimination needed the federal approval to change voting laws.
The 9th San Francisco-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year found that Arizona’s restrictions violated the Voting Rights Act, although they remained in effect for the November 3 election. The 9th Circuit also found that “false race-based allegations of vote-fraud fraud” were used to persuade Arizona lawmakers to enact this restriction with discriminatory intent, violating the U.S. Constitution’s ban on denying race-based voting rights.