Supreme Court decisions for 6/11/18

[Hellsbane]

I don’t see it that way. The Husted decision was spot on with the law. Years without voting, no return of the required letter or card. How long do you expect them to keep people on their roles who don’t live in the district?

[Iam]

@SpacemanSpiff

@Safiel

@PizzaReverend

The problem with the Ohio decision is this: It’s assuming that not excercising that right is basis to revoke it.

Let’s play a game: If you don’t carry your gun for two years, we will confiscate it, and you have to reapply to get it back.

Would a single Conservative be for that? No. So why is it ok to do the same for voting?

@PizzaReverend

The problem with the Ohio decision is this: It’s assuming that not excercising that right is basis to revoke it.

Let’s play a game: If you don’t carry your gun for two years, we will confiscate it, and you have to reapply to get it back.

Would a single Conservative be for that? No. So why is it ok to do the same for voting?

I am still reading the decision and the dissents, however, I will respond briefly to state that, under this decision, non voting cannot be the SOLE reason for removing a voter from the rolls. It merely starts the process.

Also, I have read enough to determine that this case was one of statutory interpretation, not Constitutional interpretation, so no comparisons to guns or anything else would be valid.

In any event, I really need to read the Breyer and Sotomayor dissents before I can critique them.

Man, for a party that wants to claim that they, and they alone, have the black voters interests at heart they sure do seem to be going out of their way to make it as hard for them to vote as possible.

They only way I could get behind this ruling is if the state is required to send all those notices by certified mail. That way there can be a written record as to whether the recipient received the notice or not. Otherwise there’s no accountability.

While this ruling may disproportionately affect minorities as the stats on voter rolls purge already show, and even if you take away that fact, it is an absolutely atrocious decision that will negatively impact all Americans subjected to such nonsense. This ruling is a complete coercive piece of junk!

[WildRose]

Despite the language to the contrary in practice voting has always been a heavily restricted privilege afforded only to US citizens.

Gun ownership is the right of everyone in the US irrespective of citizenship unless they have done something to disqualify themselves.

[Safiel]

In discussing Husted v A. Philip Randolph Institute, it is important to keep a very important fact in mind.

This is not a Constitutional case. This is not even a Voting Rights Act case. Neither provisions of the Constitution nor the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as amended were invoked by either party.

This is a purely a case of statutory interpretation.

Did the Ohio law violate either or both of two federal statutes, either the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 or the Help America Vote Act of 2002?

The two acts, individually and taken together, ban removal of a voter’s name from the voter roles SOLELY for failure to vote in an election or in any number of elections. However, failure to vote may lawfully trigger a process that can eventually end with a voter’s removal from the rolls.

It is also important consider that an additional stated purpose of Congress in passing these acts was to ensure voter rolls remained accurate and that States should conduct list maintenance.

Ohio’s statute is clearly in both the spirit and letter of the federal statutes and thus was upheld. I believe the Supreme Court reached the correct result with the correct reasoning.

We have heard comments about this decision potentially leading to shenanigans against minority voters. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. That question was NOT before Supreme Court and they rightfully did not consider it, as it was outside of their purview, which was merely interpreting the federal statute.

It is the place of Congress, not the Supreme Court, to determine policy. A future Congress can consider whether to change the current statutes to restrict the manner in how States may conduct maintenance on their voter lists. That is a policy issue and is a matter for Congress, not the Supreme Court.

If a State is outright committing violations of the Constitution or Voting Rights Act of 1965 as amended and that question is brought to the Supreme Court, they could then rightfully act to enjoin the violation.

But that is NOT what was before the Supreme Court yesterday.

[Hellsbane]

Thank you clarifying this case. SCOTUS ruled in accordance with the law as written and how Ohio acted in accordance with that law. Their determination was accurate with both the actions of Ohio as well as the law.