Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-980_f2q3.pdf
Page Number: 34

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

7 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

prepaid, preaddressed “return card” that the regis-
trant  may  send  back  to  the  State  verifying  his  or 
her  current  address.    And  it  must  warn  the  regis-
trant that unless the card is returned, if the regis-
trant  does  not  vote  in  the  next  two  federal  elec-
tions,  then  his  or  her  name  will  be  removed  from 
the list of eligible voters. 

B 
  The Supplemental Process, Ohio’s program for removing 
registrants  from  the  federal  rolls  on  the  ground  that  the 
voter  has  changed  his  address,  is  much  simpler.    Each  of 
Ohio’s  88  boards  of  elections  sends  its  version  of  subsec-
tion (d)’s “last chance” notice to those on a list “of individ-
uals  who,  according  to  the  board’s  records,  have  not  en-
gaged  in  certain  kinds  of  voter  activity”—including 
“casting  a  ballot”—for  a  period  of  “generally  two  years.”  
Record  1507.    Accordingly,  each  board’s  list  can  include 
registered  voters  who  failed  to  vote  in  a  single  federal 
election.    And  anyone  on  the  list  who  “continues  to  be 
inactive”  by  failing  to  vote  for  the  next  “four  consecutive 
years, including two federal elections,” and fails to respond 
to the notice is removed from the federal voter roll.  Id., at 
1509.  Under the Supplemental Process, a person’s failure 
to  vote  is  the  sole  basis  on  which  the  State  identifies  a 
registrant  as  a  person  whose  address  may  have  changed 
and  the  sole  reason  Ohio  initiates  a  registered  voter’s 
removal using subsection (d)’s Confirmation Procedure. 

II 
  Section  8  requires  that  Ohio’s  program  “mak[e]  a  rea-
sonable  effort  to  remove”  ineligible  registrants  from  the 
rolls  because  of  “a  change  in  the  residence  of  the  regis-
trant,”  and  it  must  do  so  “in  accordance  with  subsections 
(b),  (c),  and  (d).”    §20507(a)(4)(B).    In  my  view,  Ohio’s 
program  is  unlawful  under  §8  in  two  respects.    It  first