Certain people should not vote, says the Supreme Court

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Abner, Jun 16, 2018.

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  1. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    What a terrible headline. That's not what the SCOTUS decision said at all.
     
  3. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    "Ohio law allows the state to send address confirmation notices to voters who have not engaged in voter activity for two years. If a voter returns the notice through prepaid mail, or responds online, the information is updated. If the notice is ignored and the voter fails to update a registration over the next four years, the registration is canceled."

    https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11/politics/supreme-court-husted-ohio/index.html


    "The Court was not asked to decide if states are allowed to purge names from the voter rolls. Federal law requires them to do so. That law, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, was written by congressional Democrats, passed with the votes of every single Democratic senator and 238 of the 252 Democrats in the House at the time (including Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Steny Hoyer, and James Clyburn) and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The NVRA, also known as the “motor voter” law, expanded voter registration in a number of ways, but it also formally recognized the legitimate interests of states in periodically updating their lists of voters so they are limited to people actually still residing in a place where they are eligible to vote, and commanded them to do something about it:"


    NVRA requires States to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names” of voters who are ineligible “by reason of ” death or change in residence. §20507(a)(4).

    That requirement was not altered when Congress revised some details of its operation in 2002 with the Help America Vote Act, which again passed the Senate 92-2 (only Schumer and Hillary Clinton opposed it) and got the votes of 184 of 195 House Democrats (again, including Pelosi, Hoyer, and Clyburn). None of the parties to the case challenged it; only one of the Justices suggested that it was in any way unconstitutional, and that was Justice Thomas, who joined the majority opinion but questioned whether Congress even had the right to restrict how states determine voter qualifications. So, Husted was not a case about the right to vote or the power to purge the voter rolls at all. The onlyquestion was whether the criteria that Ohio used to identify eligible voters was allowed by the federal rules established by NVRA and revised by HAVA. The next time you see someone claiming that the Supreme Court did something much broader than that, you should be on your guard not to trust anything else they say on the topic.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/supreme-courts-narrow-decision-purging-voter-rolls/
     
  4. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Good points you made!
     
  5. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    So, bottom line of this decision is thus: striking voters for not having voted is illegal, yet adding failure to respond to a post card mailing (which, let's be honest, most people will dismiss as spam) is okey-dokey? I think the opinion piece Abner linked to is right to question this logic. At the very least, these kinds of things need to be paired with robust provisional ballot system so people struck from rolls in inevitable blunders have a chance to exercise their rights.
     
    Abner likes this.
  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Agreed, in this day and age, if you want me to read something, do not send it by post.
     

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