Abuse of Discretion – Voting Rights Act – Ballot Collection

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United States Supreme Court

Case Name: Mark Brnovich, et al., v. Democratic National Committee, et al.,

Case No.: 19-1257; 19-1258

Focus: Abuse of Discretion – Voting Rights Act – Ballot Collection

In these cases, we are called upon for the first time to apply §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to regulations that govern how ballots are collected and counted. Arizona law generally makes it very easy to vote. All voters may vote by mail or in person for nearly a month before election day, but Arizona imposes two restrictions that are claimed to be unlawful. First, in some counties, voters who choose to cast a ballot in person on election day must vote in their own precincts or else their ballots will not be counted. Second, mail-in ballots cannot be collected by anyone other than an election official, a mail carrier, or a voter’s family member, household member, or caregiver. After a trial, a District Court upheld these rules, as did a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. But an en banc court, by a divided vote, found them to be unlawful. It relied on the rules’ small disparate impacts on members of minority groups, as well as past discrimination dating back to the State’s territorial days. And it overturned the District Court’s finding that the Arizona Legislature did not adopt the ballot-collection restriction for a discriminatory purpose. We now hold that the en banc court misunderstood and misapplied §2 and that it exceeded its authority in rejecting the District Court’s factual finding on the issue of legislative intent.

Reversed and remanded

Dissenting: KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BREYER and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined.

Concurring: GORSUCH, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined.

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Derek A Hawkins is Corporate Counsel, at Salesforce.