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Page Number: 80

36 

BRNOVICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

service.  Given that circumstance, the Arizona statute dis-
criminates in just the way Section 2 proscribes.  The major-
ity once more comes to a different conclusion only by ignor-
ing the local conditions with which Arizona’s law interacts. 
  The critical facts for evaluating the ballot-collection rule 
have to do with mail service.  Most Arizonans vote by mail.  
But many rural Native American voters lack access to mail 
service, to a degree hard for most of us to fathom.  Only 18% 
of Native voters in rural counties receive home mail deliv-
ery, compared to 86% of white voters living in those coun-
ties.  See 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 836.  And for many or most, 
there  is  no  nearby  post  office.   Native  Americans  in  rural 
Arizona “often must travel 45 minutes to 2 hours just to get 
to a mailbox.”  948 F. 3d, at 1006; see 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 
869  (“Ready  access  to  reliable  and  secure  mail  service  is 
nonexistent” in some Native American communities).  And 
between a quarter to a half of households in these Native 
communities do not have a car.  See ibid.  So getting ballots 
by  mail  and sending them  back  poses  a  serious  challenge 
for Arizona’s rural Native Americans.12 
  For that reason, an unusually high rate of Native Ameri-
cans used to “return their early ballots with the assistance 
of third parties.”  Id., at 870.13  As the District Court found: 
“[F]or  many  Native  Americans  living  in  rural  locations,” 

—————— 

12 Certain Hispanic communities in Arizona confront similar difficul-
ties.  For example, in the border town of San Luis, which is 98% Hispanic, 
“[a]lmost  13,000  residents  rely  on  a  post  office  located  across  a  major 
highway” for their mail service.  329 F. Supp. 3d, at 869.  The median 
income in San Luis is $22,000, so “many people [do] not own[ ] cars”—
making it “difficult” to “receiv[e] and send[ ] mail.”  Ibid. 

13 The majority faults the plaintiffs for failing to provide “concrete” sta-
tistical evidence on this point.  See ante, at 31.  But no evidence of that 
kind exists: Arizona has never compiled data on third-party ballot collec-
tion.  And the witness testimony the plaintiffs offered in its stead allowed 
the District Court to conclude that minority voters, and especially Native 
Americans,  disproportionately  needed  third-party  assistance  to  vote.  
See 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 869–870.