Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the 2016 laws, 6-3, that experts say makes it harder for people of color to challenge voting laws.
Thomas Saenz, President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), said that the ruling makes clear that the Supreme Court is “woefully disconnected from social and historical reality, particularly when it comes to the experiences of minorities who continue to face daily depredations of basic rights in our country.” Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, accepted the legitimacy of concerns of voter fraud being committed by people who are ineligible to vote or that voters are being intimidated or coerced.
Saenz also noted that the ruling was on laws that came out of Arizona, “a heavily and increasingly Latino state, whose presidential election vote was fodder for the reckless challengers in Congress who acted despite a dangerous and unprecedented attempt at insurrection on January 6.” One of the 2016 laws at the center of the ruling makes it a crime for anyone other than voters, their families, or caregivers to drop off or deliver their mail- in ballots.
The other allows election officials to throw out ballots cast at the wrong precinct, even if by accident. The law limiting who can drop off or deliver a person’s mail- in ballot, which was in effect for 2020 election, struck at Latino and other groups who have helped increase Latino voter turnout by going door-to-door to speak to please who not regularly vote or had never voted.
Along with providing potential voters information on political issues, community groups offer rides to polls, hold mobilization events that draw on the culture and on Latino leaders, and help Latinos overcome obstacles that prevent or keep them from voting. Tomas Robles, co-executive director of LUCHA, the progressive group that mobilizes Latino voters stated, “What we have to do now, we have to adjust to the fact that we can’t depend on the Supreme Court to rule in a just manner. We have to continue to be diligent about engaging voters around what’s happening in the state and what’s happening in elections and get them ready.”
Recent Comments