Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

28 

BRNOVICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 

Opinion of the Court 

voters who voted on election day cast an out-of-precinct bal-
lot.    Ibid.    For  non-minority  voters,  the  rate  was  around 
0.5%.  Ibid. (citing Tr. Exh. 97, at 3, 20–21).  A policy that 
appears to work for 98% or more of voters to whom it ap-
plies—minority and non-minority alike—is unlikely to ren-
der a system unequally open. 
  The Court of Appeals attempted to paint a different pic-
ture, but its use of statistics was highly misleading for rea-
sons that were well explained by Judge Easterbrook in a §2 
case involving voter IDs.  As he put it, a distorted picture 
can  be  created  by  dividing  one  percentage  by  another.  
Frank,  768  F. 3d,  at  752,  n. 3.    He  gave  this  example:  “If 
99.9% of whites had photo IDs, and 99.7% of blacks did,” it 
could  be  said  that  “ ‘blacks  are  three  times  as  likely  as 
whites to lack qualifying ID’ (0.3 ÷ 0.1 = 3), but such a state-
ment would mask the fact that the populations were effec-
tively identical.”  Ibid. 
  That is exactly what the en banc Ninth Circuit did here.  
The District Court found that among the counties that re-
ported out-of-precinct ballots in the 2016 general election, 
roughly  99%  of Hispanic  voters,  99% of  African-American 
voters,  and  99%  of  Native  American  voters  who  voted  on 
election  day  cast  their  ballots  in  the  right  precinct,  while 
roughly 99.5% of non-minority voters did so.  329 F. Supp. 
3d,  at  872.    Based  on  these  statistics,  the  en  banc  Ninth 
Circuit concluded that “minority voters in Arizona cast [out-
of-precinct] ballots at twice the rate of white voters.”  948 
F. 3d, at 1014; see id., at 1004–1005.  This is precisely the 
sort  of  statistical  manipulation  that  Judge  Easterbrook 
rightly  criticized,  namely,  1.0  ÷  0.5  =  2.    Properly  under-
stood,  the  statistics  show  only  a  small  disparity  that  pro-
vides  little  support  for  concluding  that  Arizona’s  political 
processes are not equally open. 
  The Court of Appeals’ decision also failed to give appro-
priate weight to the state interests that the out-of-precinct 
rule  serves.    Not  counting  out-of-precinct  votes  induces