I will paste the syllabus for Husted.
(Note to Mods: As a work of the Federal Government, the following is in the public domain. Attribution is given to the United States Supreme Court.)
The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) addresses the removal of
ineligible voters from state voting rolls, 52 U. S. C. §20501(b), including
those who are ineligible “by reason of” a change in residence,
§20507(a)(4). The Act prescribes requirements that a State must
meet in order to remove a name on change-of-residence grounds,
§§20507(b), (c), (d). The most relevant of these are found in subsection
(d), which provides that a State may not remove a name on
change-of-residence grounds unless the registrant either (A) confirms
in writing that he or she has moved or (B) fails to return a preaddressed,
postage prepaid “return card” containing statutorily prescribed
content and then fails to vote in any election during the period
covering the next two general federal elections.
In addition to these specific change-of-residence requirements, the
NVRA also contains a general “Failure-to-Vote Clause,” §20507(b)(2),
consisting of two parts. It first provides that a state removal program
“shall not result in the removal of the name of any person
. . . by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” Second, as added by
the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), it specifies that “nothing
in [this prohibition] may be construed to prohibit a State from using
the procedures” described above—sending a return card and removing
registrants who fail to return the card and fail to vote for the requisite
time. Since one of the requirements for removal under subsection
(d) is the failure to vote, the explanation added by HAVA makes
clear that the Failure-to-Vote Clause’s prohibition on removal “by
reason of the person’s failure to vote” does not categorically preclude
using nonvoting as part of a test for removal. Another provision
makes this point even more clearly by providing that “no registrant
may be removed solely by reason of a failure to vote.” §21083(a)(4)(A)
(emphasis added).
Respondents contend that Ohio’s process for removing voters on
change-of-residence grounds violates this federal law. The Ohio process
at issue relies on the failure to vote for two years as a rough way
of identifying voters who may have moved. It sends these nonvoters
a preaddressed, postage prepaid return card, asking them to verify
that they still reside at the same address. Voters who do not return
the card and fail to vote in any election for four more years are presumed
to have moved and are removed from the rolls.
Held: The process that Ohio uses to remove voters on change-ofresidence
grounds does not violate the Failure-to-Vote Clause or any
other part of the NVRA. Pp. 8–21.
(a) Ohio’s law does not violate the Failure-to-Vote Clause. Pp. 8–
16.
(1) Ohio’s removal process follows subsection (d) to the letter: It
does not remove a registrant on change-of-residence grounds unless
the registrant is sent and fails to mail back a return card and then
fails to vote for an additional four years. See §20507(d)(1)(B). Pp. 8–
9.
(2) Nonetheless, respondents argue that Ohio’s process violates
subsection (b)’s Failure-to-Vote Clause by using a person’s failure to
vote twice over: once as the trigger for sending return cards and
again as one of the two requirements for removal. But Congress
could not have meant for the Failure-to-Vote Clause to cannibalize
subsection (d) in that way. Instead, the Failure-to-Vote Clause, both
as originally enacted in the NVRA and as amended by HAVA, simply
forbids the use of nonvoting as the sole criterion for removing a registrant,
and Ohio does not use it that way. The phrase “by reason of”
in the Failure-to-Vote Clause denotes some form of causation, see
Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., 557 U. S. 167, 176, and in context
sole causation is the only type of causation that harmonizes the
Failure-to-Vote Clause and subsection (d). Any other reading would
mean that a State that follows subsection (d) nevertheless can violate
the Failure-to-Vote Clause. When Congress enacted HAVA, it made
this point explicit by adding to the Failure-to-Vote Clause an explanation
of how the clause is to be read, i.e., in a way that does not contradict
subsection (d). Pp. 9–12.
(3) Respondents’ and the dissent’s alternative reading is inconsistent
with both the text of the Failure-to-Vote Clause and the clarification
of its meaning in §21083(a)(4). Among other things, their
reading would make HAVA’s new language worse than redundant,
since no sensible person would read the Failure-to-Vote Clause as
prohibiting what subsections (c) and (d) expressly allow. Nor does
the Court’s interpretation render the Failure-to-Vote Clause superfluous;
the clause retains meaning because it prohibits States from
using nonvoting both as the ground for removal and as the sole evidence
for another ground for removal (e.g., as the sole evidence that
someone has died). Pp. 12–15.
(4) Respondents’ additional argument—that so many registered
voters discard return cards upon receipt that the failure to send cards
back is worthless as evidence that an addressee has moved—is based
on a dubious empirical conclusion that conflicts with the congressional
judgment found in subsection (d). Congress clearly did not think
that the failure to send back a return card was of no evidentiary value,
having made that conduct one of the two requirements for removal
under subsection (d). Pp. 15–16.
(b) Nor has Ohio violated other NVRA provisions. Pp. 16–21.
(1) Ohio removes the registrants at issue on a permissible
ground: change of residence. The failure to return a notice and the
failure to vote simply serve as evidence that a registrant has moved,
not as the ground itself for removal. Pp. 16–17.
(2) The NVRA contains no “reliable indicator” prerequisite to
sending notices, requiring States to have good information that
someone has moved before sending them a return card. So long as
the trigger for sending such notices is “uniform, nondiscriminatory,
and in compliance with the Voting Rights Act,” §20507(b)(1), States
may use whatever trigger they think best, including the failure to
vote. Pp. 17–19.
(3) Ohio has not violated the NVRA’s “reasonable effort” provision,
§20507(a)(4). Even assuming that this provision authorizes federal
courts to go beyond the restrictions set out in subsections (b), (c),
and (d) and strike down a state law that does not meet some standard
of “reasonableness,” Ohio’s process cannot be unreasonable because
it uses the change-of-residence evidence that Congress said it
could: the failure to send back a notice coupled with the failure to
vote for the requisite period. Ohio’s process is accordingly lawful.
Pp. 19–21.
838 F. 3d 699, reversed.
ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J.,
and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and GORSUCH, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a
concurring opinion. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which
GINSBURG, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a
dissenting opinion.
