The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a pair of Republican-backed Arizona voting restrictions do not run afoul of federal law, rejecting a Democratic challenge and dealing a blow to voting rights advocates.
The 6-3 decision, which fell along familiar ideological lines, comes as a raft of GOP-crafted voting limits are introduced and passed across the country, with Democrats and civil rights groups turning to courts to argue the new measures threaten to suppress the vote of racial minorities.
One Arizona policy at issue in Thursday’s case requires provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct to be discarded. The second measure makes it illegal for most third parties to deliver ballots for others, a practice critics refer to as “ballot harvesting.”
A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled last year that the Arizona policies violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because they disproportionately affect minority groups, prompting Republicans’ appeal to the Supreme Court.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}
