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Page Number: 15

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HUSTED v. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE 

Opinion of the Court 

It  does  not  strike  any  registrant  solely  by  reason  of  the 
failure to vote.  Instead, as expressly permitted by federal 
law,  it  removes  registrants  only  when  they  have  failed  to 
vote  and  have  failed  to  respond  to  a  change-of-residence 
notice. 

C 
  Respondents  and  the  dissent  advance  an  alternative 
interpretation  of  the  Failure-to-Vote  Clause,  but  that 
reading is inconsistent with both the text of the clause and 
the  clarification  of  its  meaning  in  §21083(a)(4)(A).    Re-
spondents argue that the clause allows States to consider 
nonvoting only to the extent that subsection (d) requires—
that  is,  only  after  a  registrant  has  failed  to  mail  back  a 
notice.    Any  other  use  of  the  failure  to  vote,  including  as 
the  trigger  for  mailing  a  notice, they  claim,  is  proscribed.  
In  essence,  respondents  read  the  language  added  to  the 
clause  by  HAVA—“except  that  nothing  in  this  paragraph 
may be construed to prohibit a State from using the proce-
dures  described  in  subsections  (c)  and  (d)”—as  an  excep-
tion  to  the  general  rule  forbidding  the  use  of  nonvoting.  
See  Brief  for  Respondents  37.    And  the  Sixth  Circuit 
seemed  to  find  this  point  dispositive,  reasoning  that  “ ‘ex-
ceptions  in  statutes  must  be  strictly  construed.’ ”    838 
F. 3d, at 708 (quoting Detroit Edison Co. v. SEC, 119 F. 2d 
730, 739 (CA6 1941)). 
  We  reject  this  argument  for  three  reasons.    First,  it 
distorts  what  the  new  language  added  by  HAVA  actually 
says.  The new language does not create an exception to a 
general rule against the use of nonvoting.  It does not say 
that  the  failure  to  vote  may  not  be  used  “except  that this 
paragraph does not prohibit a State from using the proce-
dures  described  in  subsections  (c)  and  (d).”    Instead,  it 
says that “nothing in this paragraph may be construed” to 
have that effect.  §20507(b)(2) (emphasis added).  Thus, it 
sets  out  not  an  exception,  but  a  rule  of interpretation.    It