The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday (July 1) in favor of Arizona Republicans who implemented voting restrictions that disproportionately impact Black, Latinx, and Indigenous voters. The 6-3 ruling found that the state’s voting law don’t violate the Voting Rights Act and could have widespread implications for other restrictive laws being put in place around the country.
The nation’s high court ruling upheld two provisions of the Arizona law. The first provision says that all in-person ballots cast at the wrong precinct on Election Day have to be thrown out completely. The other provision puts limits on a practice called “ballot collection,” and states that only family members or caregivers, mail carriers, and election officials can deliver another person’s completed ballot to a polling location.
The court ruled that these restrictions don’t violate the section two of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or language, but voting rights advocates say they will directly impact non-white voters.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the ruling, repeating some GOP lawmakers’ argument for the hundreds of voting restriction laws birthed out of lies told by Donald Trump during the 2020 election.
“Fraud can affect the outcome of a close election, and fraudulent votes dilute the rights of citizens to cast ballots that carry appropriate weight,” Alito wrote. Fraud, the justice said, can “also undermine public confidence in the fairness of elections and the perceived legitimacy of the announced outcome.”
Voting rights groups publicly decried the court’s decision, and the potential inability of future challenges to voting restriction laws.
Last month, the Justice Department announced it was suing the state of Georgia over its controversial election restriction law.
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