| In 2015, a guy named Larry Harmon showed up to vote on a local initiative. Harmon’s problem was the last time he cast a vote was in 2008 and he was sort of sloppy about even reading his mail. He wasn’t on the voter roll, and, as far as I can make out, was not allowed to vote. (A brief side trip here. I’m chief judge in a voting precinct. I have been for six years. In my state I would have issued Harmon a provisional ballot. He would have cast it. The Board of Elections would have examined his ballot the week after the election. They would determine that he was eligible to vote and added his ballot to the total and put him back on the voter rolls for next election. A 100% no-harm-no-foul situation. I don’t know how Ohio works this issue.) Keeping with their M.O. of ensuring the voting process is as open to abuse as they can make it, a leftwing advocacy group, the A. Philip Randolph Institute filed suit saying booting Harmon from the voter rolls was against federal law. The federal law say you can purge voting rolls, like by sending post cards, but you can’t use failure to vote as a reason to purge voters. Ohio prevailed in federal district court but 6th Circuit reversed saying that because the failure to vote triggered the mailing of the post card that it was actually Harmon’s failure to vote that got him booted and therefore violated federal law. The case was argued before the Supreme Court in January and just now the Supreme Court has ruled, 5-4, in favor of Ohio. Via SCOTUSBlog Live Blog: | The majority holds that Ohio’s process follows subsection (d) of the National Voter Registration Act “to the letter: It is undisputed that Ohio does not remove a registrant on change-of-residence grounds unless the registrant is sent and fails to mail back a return card and then fails to vote for an additional four years.” Alito says that the dissenting justices have a policy disagreement, but that’s a matter for Congress; it is not up to the justices to second-guess Congress or decide whether there is a better way to keep the voter roles up to date. |
Here is the decision. |
Poster Comment:
The Court has definitely taken a strict textualist turn since Gorsuch arrived.
Gorsuch so far seems more of a strict textualist than even Scalia. He's out-Scaliaing Scalia.
