{"id":107894,"date":"2021-02-24T19:26:55","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T19:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=107894"},"modified":"2021-02-24T19:26:55","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T19:26:55","slug":"u-s-supreme-court-set-to-weigh-republican-backed-voting-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/u-s-supreme-court-set-to-weigh-republican-backed-voting-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Supreme Court set to weigh Republican-backed voting restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Reuters) – Fresh off an election in which former President Donald Trump made false claims of fraud, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to ponder the legality of a restriction on early voting in Arizona that his fellow Republicans argued was needed to combat fraud.<\/p>

FILE PHOTO: A woman walks to cast her ballot at the register of voters during early voting in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., October 29, 2020. REUTERS\/Edgard Garrido\/File Photo<\/figcaption>

The Republican-backed law, spurred in part by a video purportedly showing voter fraud that courts later deemed misleading, made it a crime to provide another person\u2019s completed early ballot to election officials, with the exception of family members or caregivers.<\/p>\n

Community activists sometimes engage in ballot collection to facilitate voting and increase voter turnout. Ballot collection is legal in most states, with varying limitations. Republican critics call the practice \u201cballot harvesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supreme Court arguments over the 2016 ban and another Arizona voting restriction – both ruled unlawful by a lower court – are scheduled for next Tuesday, with a decision due by the end of June. A broad ruling by high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, endorsing the restrictions could further weaken the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 federal law that barred racial discrimination in voting, by making it harder to prove violations.<\/p>\n

The video, taken from security camera footage, shows a man carrying a box of ballots into a Maricopa County Elections Department office. It was posted on a blog in 2014 by A.J. LaFaro, the Republican Party chairman at the time in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.<\/p>\n

LaFaro\u2019s post questioned whether the man was a U.S. citizen and called him a \u201cviolent thug\u201d who was \u201cstuffing the ballot box as I watched in amazement.\u201d A judge later called the blog post \u201cracially charged\u201d and concluded that the footage showed no illegal activity. The man seen in the video filed an unsuccessful defamation suit against LaFaro.<\/p>\n

Republican-governed states including Arizona have imposed a variety of voting restrictions in recent years. In the aftermath of Trump\u2019s baseless claims of fraud, further curbs on voting are being pursued in 33 states following his Nov. 3 loss to Democrat Joe Biden in an election that drew record turnout, according to New York University School of Law\u2019s Brennan Center for Justice.<\/p>\n

\u2018THE MAIN TOOL\u2019<\/p>\n

At issue in the Supreme Court case is the Voting Rights Act\u2019s Section 2, which bans any rule that results in voting discrimination \u201con account of race or color.\u201d The court in 2013 gutted another section of the statute that determined which states with a history of racial discrimination needed federal approval to change voting laws.<\/p>

Slideshow ( 4 images )<\/span><\/figcaption>

Weakening Section 2 would eliminate \u201cthe main tool we have left now to protect voters against racial discrimination,\u201d said Myrna P\u00e9rez, director of the Brennan Center\u2019s Voting Rights and Elections Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s one thing that the election and the insurrection showed it\u2019s that not everyone buys into the idea of free, fair and accessible elections,\u201d P\u00e9rez added, referring to a pro-Trump mob\u2019s Jan. 6 rampage at the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court case also involves a longstanding Arizona policy that discards ballots cast in-person at a precinct other than the one to which a voter has been assigned. In some places, voters\u2019 precincts are not the closest one to their home.<\/p>\n

The case pits Arizona\u2019s Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich and the Arizona Republican Party against the Democratic National Committee and the Arizona Democratic Party, which sued over the restrictions. Arizona\u2019s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has backed the challenge.<\/p>\n

The two sides differ sharply over whether genuine voter fraud must be documented to justify ballot restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe notion that voter fraud must be proved in order to enact regulations of elections is not established in the law,\u201d said Republican election lawyer Jason Torchinsky, who filed a brief backing Brnovich. \u201cThere are tons of areas where legislatures legislate without proving that some kind of fraud or crime has occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica Ring Amunson, an attorney who represents Hobbs, said courts should take false fraud claims into account when evaluating the legality of voting restrictions.<\/p>\n

Legislatures often justify such restrictions as necessary to tackle fraud and increase voter confidence, but \u201csimultaneously they\u2019re spreading baseless claims of voter fraud when none exists, and that is the very thing that is leading to people losing confidence in elections,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year found Arizona\u2019s restrictions unlawful, though they remained in effect for the Nov. 3 election. It ruled that the restrictions disproportionately burdened Black, Hispanic and Native American voters and violated the Voting Rights Act.<\/p>\n

The 9th Circuit also found that \u201cfalse, race-based claims of ballot collection fraud\u201d were used to convince Arizona legislators to enact that restriction with discriminatory intent, violating the U.S. Constitution\u2019s prohibition on denying voting rights based on race.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes in 2018 faulted Arizona\u2019s legislature for its \u201cmisinformed belief that ballot collection fraud was occurring,\u201d but upheld the voting restrictions. The 9th Circuit last year overturned that ruling.<\/p>\n

Source: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Reuters) – Fresh off an election in which former President Donald Trump made false claims of fraud, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to ponder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nU.S. Supreme Court set to weigh Republican-backed voting restrictions - Fin2me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/u-s-supreme-court-set-to-weigh-republican-backed-voting-restrictions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"U.S. Supreme Court set to weigh Republican-backed voting restrictions - Fin2me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Reuters) – Fresh off an election in which former President Donald Trump made false claims of fraud, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to ponder [...]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/u-s-supreme-court-set-to-weigh-republican-backed-voting-restrictions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fin2me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-24T19:26:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/cnewsfotor37-2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/u-s-supreme-court-set-to-weigh-republican-backed-voting-restrictions\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/u-s-supreme-court-set-to-weigh-republican-backed-voting-restrictions\/\",\"name\":\"U.S. Supreme Court set to weigh Republican-backed voting restrictions - 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