Arizona AG asks Supreme Court to validate voting laws as not racially motivated News
© WikiMedia (Tom Arthur)
Arizona AG asks Supreme Court to validate voting laws as not racially motivated

In a case against the Democratic National Committee, Arizona’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich requested on Monday that the US Supreme Court overrule the Ninth Circuit’s holding that invalidated several of the state’s voting laws.

The Ninth Circuit struck down the out-of-precinct policy followed by Arizona as well as its House Bill 2023 for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Fifteenth Amendment in January of this year. The court held that these voting laws were disproportionately discriminatory to American Indians, Hispanic Americans and African American voters in the state. With regard to House Bill 2023, the court also held that the bill was enacted with an intent to discriminate against racial minorities.

House Bill 2023 is called a “ballot-collection law” that only allows certain individuals to handle another person’s early ballot after it has been completed. The out-of-precinct policy calls for officials to not count the provisional ballots that are cast in person on Election Day when the votes were case outside of the voter’s designated precinct.

The state has since appealed this ruling and is entreating the Supreme Court to overrule the Ninth Circuit’s decision. Brnovich claimed in the state’s request for certiorari that the policies are meant to “prevent multiple voting, protect against voter intimidation, preserve the secrecy of the ballot, and safeguard election integrity.” He also raised concerns that not overruling the Ninth Circuit’s holding would threaten similar laws across the country by calling for a more expansive disparate-impact theory.