With renewed vigor, U.S. top court
scrutinizes curbs on voting
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[January 08, 2018]
By Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Government officials
across the United States try to maintain accurate voter rolls by
removing people who have died or moved away. But a case coming before
the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday explores whether some states are
aggressively purging voter rolls in a way that disenfranchises thousands
of voters.
The justices will hear arguments in Republican-governed Ohio's appeal of
a lower court ruling that blocked its policy of erasing from voter
registration lists people who do not regularly cast a ballot. Under the
policy, such registration is deleted if the person goes six years
without either voting or contacting state voting officials.
"Voting is the foundation of our democracy, and it is much too important
to treat as a 'use it or lose it' right," said Stuart Naifeh, a voting
rights lawyer with liberal advocacy group Demos, which is representing
plaintiffs challenging Ohio's policy along with the American Civil
Liberties Union.
Voting rights has been an important theme before the Supreme Court
during their nine-month term that began in October, in particular the
question of whether actions by state leaders have disenfranchised
thousands of voters either by marginalizing their electoral clout or by
prohibiting them from voting.
Two other cases could have a big impact on U.S. elections. At issue is
whether Republican-drawn electoral districts in Wisconsin and
Democratic-drawn districts in Maryland were fashioned to entrench the
majority party in power in such an extreme way that they violated the
constitutional rights of certain voters. The practice is called partisan
gerrymandering.
The conservative-majority court also could take up other voting rights
disputes this term including a bid by Texas to revive Republican-drawn
electoral districts that were thrown out by a lower court for
discriminating against black and Hispanic voters.
Most states periodically cleanse their voter rolls to prevent
irregularities, such as someone voting more than once on Election Day.
Ohio is one of seven states, along with Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma,
Oregon, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, that purge infrequent voters
from registration lists, according to the plaintiffs who sued Ohio in
2016.
"Among those, Ohio is the most aggressive. It has the shortest timeline
for removing people for non-voting," Naifeh said.
'EFFICIENCY AND INTEGRITY'
Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted noted that the state's
policy has been in place since the 1990s under Republican and Democratic
secretaries of state. "Maintaining the integrity of the voter rolls is
essential to conducting an election with efficiency and integrity,"
Husted said when the court agreed to hear the case last May.
In Ohio, registered voters do not vote for two years are sent
registration confirmation notices. If they do not respond and do not
vote over the following four years, they are purged.
Democrats have accused Republicans of taking steps at the state level,
including laws requiring certain types of government-issued
identification, intended to suppress the vote of minorities, poor people
and others who generally favor Democratic candidates.
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Voters leave a polling station after casting their votes during the
U.S. presidential election in Olmsted Falls, Ohio, U.S. on November
8, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk/File Photo
A 2016 Reuters analysis found roughly twice the rate of voter
purging in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods in Ohio's three largest
counties as in Republican-leaning neighborhoods.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled in
September 2016 that Ohio's policy ran afoul of a 1993 law that
prohibits states from striking registered voters "by reason of the
person's failure to vote."
Following that ruling, about 7,500 Ohio voters who otherwise would
have been barred were able to cast ballots in the November 2016
election, the state said. A total of 5.6 million ballots were cast
statewide.
Even as courts have invalidated Republican-drawn electoral districts
targeting racial minorities, partisan gerrymandering and purging of
voter rolls have emerged as tools to suppress voting, voting rights
advocates said.
"What we're seeing is a real moment as to whether or not we're going
to be a country that makes voting free, fair and accessible, or are
we going to put a bunch of barriers in front of the ballot box,"
said Myrna Pérez, director of the voting rights and elections
project at New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for
Justice.
Other experts called Ohio's policy reasonable to maintain ballot
integrity.
"To suppress is utter nonsense. What we are doing is enforcing the
law," said Bradley Schlozman, who supervised the U.S. Justice
Department's voting section under Republican former President George
W. Bush.
"All voting cases now seem to take on this political flavor and each
side now ascribes impure and partisan motives to the other. It's
unfortunate," Schlozman added.
One Ohio man, a Trumbull County truck driver and Army veteran, said
in an affidavit supporting the plaintiffs in the lawsuit he was
"completely blindsided" after learning he was no longer registered
to vote for the 2016 election. The last time he voted, he said, was
in 2008. He told a county election board official by email that he
is a U.S. citizen born in Ohio and should be reinstated to the
rolls.
If not, he suggested also purging his name as a taxpayer.
"We'll call us square!" the man wrote.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
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