Supreme Court Strikes a Major Blow For Election Integrity
Supreme Court Strikes a Major Blow For Election Integrity
Thwarts baseless leftist attacks on state laws that prevent voter fraud.
By Joseph Klein
The Supreme Court issued a landmark decision on July 1st that properly puts into focus the importance of election integrity. States can now be confident that they will be able to pass sensible election laws to prevent voter fraud without undue judicial interference. The Biden administration’s court challenge to the new Georgia voting law is now on life support.
The Supreme Court case involves Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which bars any law that discriminates in voting based on race. Racial discrimination in voting is prohibited, whether the law at issue was passed for the purpose of discriminating or the law is proven to have had a discriminatory effect.
By a 6 to 3 vote that split along ideological lines, the Supreme Court majority interpreted the Section 2 “effects” clause to apply only when the challenged restriction imposes a substantial burden with a significantly disparate impact on members of different racial groups.
“Mere inconvenience cannot be enough,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the majority, describing common sense “guideposts” for dealing with Section 2 challenges. The decision treats blacks and other people of color as adults who are capable of taking advantage of the same multiple ways available to them to vote that are available to everyone else.
The case the Supreme Court decided involved two of Arizona’s voting-related restrictions that opponents claimed violated Section 2. One of the restrictions required the invalidation of ballots cast in person in the wrong precinct. The other restriction prohibited vote harvesting, where third parties such as campaign workers, community activists, etc. go around and collect ballots from multiple voters in different households and deliver them to official polling stations or election offices. Exceptions to this ban included family members, caregivers, and election officials.
President Biden denounced the Supreme Court’s Section 2 decision as doing “severe damage” to voting rights, even though his own administration wrote to the justices that they did not believe the Arizona laws violated Section 2. This is the gang that can’t shoot straight.
Biden and his left wing progressive base are still upset about another Supreme Court decision several years ago involving a different section of the Voting Rights Act. That decision ended Section 5’s out-of-date, decades-old requirement that certain states with a past history of alleged discrimination receive prior federal approval for any changes to their voting laws.
The left insists that Jim Crow era laws are returning to certain red states and can only be beaten back with draconian federal intervention. Biden has recklessly perpetuated this big lie with inflammatory phrases like “Jim Crow on steroids” and “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Democrats and their friends in the mainstream media are feigning hysteria that our democratic republic is in grave danger. Only if the Senate gets rid of its legislative filibuster can a 50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote, ride to the rescue and save the country, the demagogues declare. They say they must pass their top priority bill to strip states of their constitutional authority over election procedures.
The Democrats cry voter suppression to cover up their quest for raw power. Hard data have demonstrated significant increases in black and Hispanic voter turnout during recent election cycles, including, for example, in states with photo ID requirements that Democrats have pushed to eliminate.
The Supreme Court has wisely dismissed equating minor burdens imposed on all voters seeking to exercise their right to vote with racial discrimination if some voters happen to be more inconvenienced than others. The Court also affirmed the states’ compelling interest in preventing voter fraud and ineligible ballots in order to ensure honest elections.
There was no better way for the Supreme Court to end its current term.