In a blow to voting rights, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that challengers must prove a specific intent to discriminate in order to stop the enforcement of Arizona’s restrictive voting laws. The court’s opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., overturned a lower court ruling that had blocked two Arizona laws that critics said were intentionally designed to make it harder for minorities to vote. The decision is a major victory for Republicans, who have been pushing restrictive voting laws in states across the country. It is also a setback for voting rights advocates, who argue that such laws disproportionately affect minority voters and undermine democracy..
The Arizona laws in question were passed in 2013 and include a requirement that voters provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote and a prohibition on third-party groups from collecting and returning early ballots. A group of voters and civil rights organizations challenged the laws, arguing that they were intended to discriminate against minority voters. A federal district court agreed and blocked the laws from being enforced. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that the challengers had not shown that the laws were enacted with a specific intent to discriminate..
Justice Alito wrote that the challengers had not provided enough evidence to show that the Arizona legislature had a discriminatory purpose in passing the laws. He noted that the legislature had stated that the laws were necessary to prevent voter fraud, and he said that the challengers had not shown that this was a pretext for discrimination..
Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, said that the majority had set an impossible standard for challengers to meet. She wrote that it is often difficult to prove a specific intent to discriminate, and that the majority’s ruling would make it nearly impossible to challenge discriminatory voting laws..
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