Guest Editorial: Supreme Court decision is a blow to voting rights

The Supreme Court’s recent decision on voting restrictions in Arizona is a blow against civil rights.
The high court further gutted the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act by making it much easier for states to enact restrictive voting laws and much harder to challenge laws that are increasingly being passed in Republican-dominated states.

The 6-3 ruling was the second time in a decade that conservatives on the Supreme Court have weakened components of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark Civil Rights-era law.

In an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, the court reversed an appellate ruling in deciding that Arizona’s regulations—on who can return early ballots for another person and on refusing to count ballots cast in the wrong precinct —are not racially discriminatory.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a moderate Democrat from Arizona, assailed the decision in a statement, saying it would “hurt Arizonans’ ability to make their voices heard at the ballot box.”

The ruling comes in the aftermath of former President Donald Trump’s lie that last year’s election was stolen. The falsehood spread by Trump and his allies that the 2020 race was stolen from him spurred Republicans in states such as Georgia and Florida to pass tougher rules on voting under the cloak of election integrity.

Many legal experts generally say the recent Supreme Court decision will make legal challenges under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act more difficult.

The ruling could also embolden more Republican-led states to pursue further voting restrictions.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who supports the ruling, said: “States can be confident that they can go full speed ahead to strengthen elections and protect voting rights with security measures such as voter ID and other sensible measures to make it harder to steal elections.”

After the Supreme Court ruling made it harder to challenge Republican efforts to limit ballot access in many states, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats must be pushed to pass legislation that would protect voting rights.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have already tried to respond with a sweeping voting and elections bill that Senate Republicans united to block. A separate bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore sections of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court previously weakened, has been similarly dismissed by most Republicans.

But these setbacks, combined with the Supreme Court’s decision, must fuel a sense of urgency among Democrats to act while they still have narrow majorities in the House and Senate.

(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)

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