2/26/21
In Georgia, state legislators are debating new voting restrictions, including imposing additional ID requirements for absentee voting and eliminating early voting on Sundays, which just happens to be the time for “Souls to the Polls” turnout efforts in Black churches. South Carolina lawmakers are weighing whether to require that witnesses who certify absentee ballots provide a driver’s license or voter identification number. Arizona, Indiana and Mississippi are considering mandating proof of citizenship for voter registration, while legislators in Pennsylvania and a handful of other states are seeking to do away with no-excuse mail-in voting. In short, in the face of record turnout in the 2020 elections, there are any number of initiatives underway that would make it more difficult to vote — and that would pose particular hurdles for voters of color. Meanwhile, and ominously, the Supreme Court is poised to take up a case that could neuter the remaining key provision of the Voting Rights Act that might be used to strike down these restrictions. The Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in its 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder. That 5-to-4 decision gutted a key provision, known as Section 5, which required certain states and localities with a history of discrimination to obtain approval from the Justice Department before changing voting procedures.
In the aftermath of Shelby County, states raced to impose restrictions. On Tuesday, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about two voting restrictions from Arizona. The Democratic National Committee, which challenged both restrictions, contends that they have the effect of disenfranchising voters of color. Citing Arizona’s “long history of racial discrimination and its continuing effects,” the DNC argues that minority voters move more frequently and are twice as likely as White voters to have their ballots rejected because of voting in the wrong precinct. The significance of the case will be in what standard the court adopts for how to apply Section 2 — which has been most often interpreted in the context of racial gerrymandering — to claims of discriminatory voting practices. This will be the justices’ first look at how Section 2 applies to such restrictions. Section 2, the NAACP argues in a friend-of-the-court brief, has become “the primary line of defense against both overt and subtle racial discrimination in voting.” Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee may show just how strong or weak that defensive line will be.
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