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Page Number: 82

38 

BRNOVICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

members or others with Native kinship ties.  They and an-
yone else who picks up a neighbor’s ballot and takes it to a 
post office, or delivers it to an election site, is punishable as 
a felon.  See Ariz. Rev. Stat. §16–1005(H). 
  Put  all  of  that  together,  and  Arizona’s  ballot-collection 
ban violates Section 2.  The ban interacts with conditions 
on the ground—most crucially, disparate access to mail ser-
vice—to  create  unequal  voting  opportunities  for  Native 
Americans.  Recall that only 18% of rural Native Americans 
in  the  State  have  home  delivery;  that  travel  times  of  an 
hour  or  more  to  the  nearest  post  office  are  common;  that 
many members of the community do not have cars.  See su-
pra, at 36.  Given those facts, the law prevents many Native 
Americans from making effective use of one of the principal 
means of voting in Arizona.14  What is an inconsequential 
burden  for  others  is  for  these  citizens  a  severe  hardship.  
And the State has shown no need for the law to go so far.  
Arizona,  as  noted  above,  already  has  statutes  in  place  to 
deter  fraudulent  collection  practices.    See  supra,  at  37.  
Those laws give every sign of working.  Arizona has not of-
fered any evidence of fraud in ballot collection, or even an 
account of a harm threatening to happen.  See 329 F. Supp. 
3d,  at  852  (“[T]here  has  never  been  a  case  of  voter  fraud 
associated with ballot collection charged in Arizona”).  And 
anyway, Arizona did not have to entirely forego a ballot-col-
lection  restriction  to  comply  with  Section  2.    It  could,  for 

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14 To make matters worse, in-person voting does not provide a feasible 
alternative for many rural Native voters.  Given the low population den-
sity on Arizona’s reservations, the distance to an assigned polling place—
like that to a post office—is usually long.  Again, many Native citizens 
do not own cars.  And the State’s polling-place siting practices cause some 
voters to go to the wrong precincts.  Respecting the last factor, the Dis-
trict Court found that because Navajo voters “lack standard addresses[,] 
their  precinct  assignments”  are  “based  upon  guesswork.”    Democratic 
Nat. Committee v. Reagan, 329 F. Supp. 3d 824, 873 (Ariz. 2018).  As a 
result,  there  is  frequent  “confusion  about  the  voter’s  correct  polling 
place.”  Ibid.