Another victory for Republicans seeking to make our elections more safe, secure, and valid as the US Supreme Court upholds Arizona voter restrictions, dealing defeat to Democrats challenging it.
This is a step in the right direction for bringing integrity back to American elections and restoring faith in the system at a time when many voters aren’t sure how to feel about elections and whether they can trust the process or not.
A lower court claimed the Arizona voter restrictions were affecting minorities disproportionately, but the Supreme Court disagreed and ruled in favor of the Republican effort in a 6-3 decision.
Two major issues here were ballots delivered to the wrong precinct would be discarded, as each person has a designated voting precinct they should attend. This is likely for crowd control and logistics. Voters must vote in their designated precinct, even if the precinct isn’t the one closest to the voter’s home. Ballots cast in the wrong location were suggested to be discarded.
The second big issue was that Republicans wanted it to be illegal to deliver ballots for other people – something critics could refer to as ballot harvesting. In that sense, Republicans want the voter to vote for themselves, because if other people can deliver votes – what’s to stop them from filling out multiple ballots for other people?
Each person gets one vote and should make that vote themselves.
One Arizona policy at issue in Thursday’s case requires provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct to be discarded. The second measure makes it illegal for most third parties to deliver ballots for others, a practice critics refer to as “ballot harvesting.”
As expected, the Conservative judges ruled in favor against the liberal judges, as reported on Reuters:
The 6-3 ruling, with the court’s conservative justices in the majority, held that the restrictions on early ballot collection by third parties and where absentee ballots may be cast did not violate the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 federal law that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented from the decision, which was authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito.
The Arizona Republican party had appealed a lower court decision made by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals who suggested that the presented restrictions were unlawful.
This went to the Supreme Court and was turned around in favor of Republicans seeking election integrity and using their suggested measures in the hopes to combat potential voter fraud. Of course, anyone who wants a fair election should support that, and it’s no surprise that Democrats were against it, claiming the restrictions were essentially discriminating or racist (typical Democrat argument).
Reuters further reported on that issue, stating:
The Arizona ruling clarified the limits of the Voting Rights Act and how courts may analyze claims of voting discrimination.
The “mere fact there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote,” Alito said.
In terms of fighting election fraud, it was Judge Alito who spoke up again in support of the restrictions that, in their best interest, are designed to protect election integrity.
As stated again, by Reuters:
The case raised questions over whether fraud must be documented in order to justify new curbs. Arizona’s ballot collection law was spurred by a widely shared video purportedly showing voter fraud that a judge later concluded showed no illegal activity at all.
In Thursday’s ruling, Alito endorsed a state’s right to enact restrictions to combat fraud.
“One strong and entirely legitimate state interest is the prevention of fraud. Fraud can affect the outcome of a close election” and can undermine public confidence in elections, Alito said.
Democrats simply won’t be happy with any Republican effort to fortify an election and make every effort to ensure voter fraud is crushed as much as possible.
When Republicans push for things like voter ID or other methods of ensuring that each person has one vote and they have to make it securely, the Democrats continue pushing back and often resort to calling Republican efforts racist or discriminating. In reality, the Democrats should want a fortified election process that is trusted by the American people as well, but for some strange reason, they’re not on the same page as Republicans when it comes to restoring faith in our American election process.
Many Democrats also argue against voter ID, suggesting not everyone has access to an ID – but that’s one of the most laughable arguments to date.
So the party of handouts can give people free welfare, housing, and other things – but can’t give them a free ID to vote?
The party who suggests there’s no voter fraud can’t support restrictions that help ensure every American citizen has one vote in the election?
Republicans want a fair, strong, and trusted election process.
Democrats oppose their efforts.
What does that tell us?
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