Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 83.0

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

39 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

example, have added an exception to the statute for Native 
clan or kinship ties, to accommodate the special, “intensely 
local”  situation  of  the  rural  Native  American  community.  
Gingles, 478 U. S., at 79.  That Arizona did not do so shows, 
at best, selective indifference to the voting opportunities of 
its Native American citizens. 
  The majority’s opinion fails to acknowledge any of these 
facts.  It quotes extensively from the District Court’s finding 
that  the  ballot-collection  ban  does  not  interfere  with  the 
voting opportunities of minority groups generally.  See ante, 
at  31,  n. 19.    But  it  never  addresses  the  court’s  separate 
finding  that  the  ban  poses  a  unique  burden  for  Native 
Americans.  See supra, at 36–37.  Except in a pair of foot-
notes responding to this dissent, the term “Native Ameri-
can” appears once (count it, once) in the majority’s five-page 
discussion  of  Arizona’s  ballot-collection  ban.    So  of  course 
that community’s strikingly limited access to mail service 
is  not  addressed.15    In  the  majority’s  alternate  world,  the 

—————— 

15 In one of those footnotes, the majority defends its omission by saying 
that “no individual [Native American] voter testified that [the collection 
ban] would make it significantly more difficult for him or her to vote.”  
Ante, at 34, n. 21.  But as stated above, the District Court found, based 
on  the  testimony  of  “lawmakers,  elections  officials[,]  community  advo-
cates,” and tribal representatives, that the ban would have that effect for 
many Native American voters.  329 F. Supp. 3d, at 868; see id., at 870 
(“[F]or many Native Americans living in rural locations,” voting “is an 
activity  that  requires  the  active  assistance  of  friends  and  neighbors”); 
supra, at 36–37.  The idea that the claim here fails because the plaintiffs 
did not produce less meaningful evidence (a single person’s experience) 
does not meet the straight-face standard.  And the majority’s remaining 
argument is, if anything, more eccentric.  Here, the majority assures us 
that the Postal Service has a “statutory obligation[ ]” to provide “effective 
and regular postal services to rural areas.”  Ante, at 34, n. 21.  But the 
record  shows  what  the  record  shows—once  again,  in  the  Court  of  Ap-
peals’ words, that Native Americans in rural Arizona “often must travel 
45 minutes to 2 hours just to get to a mailbox.”  Democratic Nat. Com-
mittee  v.  Hobbs,  948  F. 3d  989,  1006  (CA9  2020).    That  kind  of  back-
ground  circumstance  is  central  to  Section  2’s  totality-of-circumstances