SCOTUS Strikes Again

[Content Note: Racism; classism; disablism.]

A year after the US Supreme Court made a terrible ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act, the Court has again, in another 5-4 decision, issued a ruling that undermines access to voting:

In a 5-4 decision that divided entirely along partisan lines, the Court allowed cuts to Ohio's early voting days to go into effect. Notably, this decision came down just 16 hours before polling places were set to open in that state.

...As Judge Peter Economus, the judge who initially suspended the voting changes, explained in his opinion, the reduction in early voting days were likely to disproportionately impact African American voters. Many black churches conduct "Souls to the Polls" events that encouraging churchgoers to vote after attending Sunday services, and removing an early voting day on a Sunday reduces the opportunities to conduct these events. Additionally Judge Economus discussed empirical evidence demonstrating that "a greater proportion of blacks not only cast [early] ballots than whites but do so on early voting days that have been eliminated by" the new voting schedule.

This impact on African American voters matters because the Voting Rights Act provides that "[n]o voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."

Early voting is also an important accommodation for some people with disabilities, as well as people who have to work on Election Day, and who can't afford to lose hourly wages to vote and/or can't afford to lose their job entirely fighting for their legal right to vote with someone who doesn't care about their legal right to vote.

I am increasingly contemptuous of this Supreme Court majority and their lifetime appointments and their garbage decisions which limit democracy for marginalized people and expand "democracy" for privileged people.