The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 today to uphold Arizona’s law HB 2023 banning ballot harvesting and out-of-precinct voting. In upholding the law, the High Court ruled that Arizona’s election reform law does not violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Justice Alito wrote the opinion in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee with dissents by Kagan, Breyer and Sotomayor.
Regarding ballot harvesting, the Supreme Court upheld the law that allows only specific persons such as family and household members, caregivers, mail carriers, and election officials to handle another person’s completed early ballot. Most states require voters to vote in their own precincts, and around 20 states limit ballot collection by third parties.
Alito wrote, “A State indisputably has a compelling interest in preserving the integrity of its election process. Limiting the classes of persons who may handle early ballots to those less likely to have ulterior motives deters potential fraud and improves voter confidence.” Alito also wrote, “§2 does not deprive the States of their authority to establish nondiscriminatory voting rules . . .”
The High Court further added, “Casting a vote, whether by following the directions for using a voting machine or completing a paper ballot, requires compliance with certain rules. But because voting necessarily requires some effort and compliance with some rules, the concept of a voting system that is ‘equally open’ and that furnishes an equal ‘opportunity’ to cast a ballot must tolerate the “usual burdens of voting. Mere inconvenience cannot be enough to demonstrate a violation of §2.”
The High Court also upheld the out-of-precinct law which excludes provisional ballots cast in-person on Election Day outside of the voter’s designated precinct.
Democrats have been pushing the so-called “For the People Act,” referred to in the House as HR 1, and in the Senate as S 1/S 2093. This bill would massively expand ballot harvesting and allow voting in any precinct. Last week, the Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a veto. This week, the Democrat House-controlled Judiciary Committee held a hearing with less than 24 hours’ notice to push the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act,” which would, among other things, require nationwide “preclearance.”
Under “preclearance,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) gets total control over any “changes” to all elections and can require fraudulent schemes such as ballot harvesting only in heavily Democratic precincts but ban harvesting in Republican precincts.
Two whistleblowers who now work for Public Interest Legal Foundation exposed the levels of corruption they saw under “preclearance.” Maureen Riordan said, “Every change that you could possibly imagine has to be submitted” to the DOJ.
To move a polling booth from Room A across the hall to Room B in the same building would require prior approval from the DOJ.
The DOJ must approve the number and location of polling machines, who will be hired, how the registrar’s offices will administrate the election and even voter qualifications! “To show you the scope of the power,” a second whistleblower, J. Christian Adams, explained that while working at the DOJ, he “would review résumés for Spanish translators for Texas school districts … because that was considered a ‘change.’”
Even town “annexations must be precleared because they add voters to the election pool,” Adams said. “So if you are going to annex a part into a town, you have to have the federal government [DOJ] approve it.” The DOJ actually “objected to an annexation of [one property] because it was adding two white voters.”
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Elections must be fair and transparent. Only legal ballots should be counted. Ballot harvesting is fraught with fraud and undermines the integrity of elections. Fair elections are the foundation of a free society. The push by some in Congress to legalize massive voter fraud is a direct assault of the freedom we enjoy in America. As we celebrate freedom during Independence Day, there are members in Congress and the Biden Department of Justice working overtime to stop election reform and undermine free and fair elections. The future of the republic and our freedom depend on fair elections.”
