Today’s Phony Panic about Voting (Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee)

National Review ^ | 3/2/2021 | Dan McLaughlin

[bitt]

Today’s talking points on the left, judging from the news media and Twitter, are about a Republican lawyer supposedly admitting to the Supreme Court that the party needs racist voter suppression to win elections. As an example, this viral tweet with over 11,000 retweets and 22,000 likes at last count:

(tweet) ~~~~~~~

Tyler Bishop @TBishUp

This literally just happened at the Supreme Court :

Justice Barrett: What is the interest of the GOP in keeping (laws that suppress minority voters) on the books?

Republican Lawyer: It puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notice the combination of “literally” with a parenthetical ellipsis to avoid giving the reader the actual, literal words. There is a reason for that. In fact, the case, Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, involves a particularly flimsy claim of “laws that suppress minority voters.” As Ilya Shapiro and Stacy Hanson note:

The Supreme Court took up Brnovich v. DNC to review Arizona’s out-of-precinct policy, which doesn’t count provisional ballots cast in person outside a voter’s designated precinct, and its ballot-collection law, which allows only certain people (essentially family, postmen and election officials) to handle someone else’s completed early ballot. The question is whether these policies comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 15th Amendment. It would be surprising if they didn’t, given that a majority of states require in-precinct voting, and nearly half limit ballot collection (often known as “ballot harvesting”).

Liberal election-law professor Rick Hasen adds that the case has liberal voting-rights lawyers in a panic precisely because it is so weak:

[bitt]

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[Mariner]

This cycle it will be all about election integrity.

And putting checks and processes in place to ensure it.

Democrats will die on this hill, as will we.

[Honorary Serb]

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is Serbian Orthodox and of Montenegrin descent!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Brnovich

This is about suppression of voting fraud and irregularities—NOT of “minority voters” per se!!!!

[shanover]

At this point, I have lost all respect for courts especially the Supreme and pretty much write them off as constitutionally useless. Trump and Bush destroyed the conservative wing of the court.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Trump and Bush are the reason we have a Conservative wing.

God Bless Our Justices.