Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 76

32 

BRNOVICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

counted.  See ante, at 27.  But elections are often fought and 
won  at  the  margins—certainly  in  Arizona.    Consider  the 
number of votes separating the two presidential candidates 
in the most recent election: 10,457.  That is fewer votes than 
Arizona discarded under the out-of-precinct policy in two of 
the  prior  three  presidential  elections.    This  Court  previ-
ously rejected the idea—the “erroneous assumption”—“that 
a small group of voters can never influence the outcome of 
an election.”  Chisom, 501 U. S., at 397, n. 24.  For that rea-
son, we held that even “a small minority” group can claim 
Section 2 protection.  See ibid.  Similarly here, the out-of-
precinct policy—which discards thousands upon thousands 
of  ballots  in  every  election—affects  more  than  sufficient 
votes  to  implicate Section  2’s  guarantee  of  equal  electoral 
opportunity. 
  And the out-of-precinct policy operates unequally: Ballots 
cast by minorities are more likely to be discarded.  In 2016, 
Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans were 
about  twice  as  likely—or  said  another  way,  100%  more 
likely—to  have  their  ballots  discarded  than  whites.    See 
App. 122.  And it is possible to break that down a bit.  Sixty 
percent of the voting in Arizona is from Maricopa County.  
There,  Hispanics  were  110%  more  likely,  African  Ameri-
cans  86%  more  likely,  and  Native  Americans  73%  more 
likely  to  have  their  ballots  tossed.    See  id.,  at  153.    Pima 
County,  the  next  largest  county,  provides  another  15%  of 
the  statewide  vote.    There,  Hispanics  were  148%  more 
likely,  African  Americans  80%  more  likely,  and  Native 
Americans 74% more likely to lose their votes.  See id., at 
157.  The record does not contain statewide figures for 2012.  
But in Maricopa and Pima Counties, the percentages were 
about the same  as  in  2016.   See id.,  at  87,  91.    Assessing 
those disparities, the plaintiffs’ expert found, and the Dis-
trict Court accepted, that the discriminatory impact of the 
out-of-precinct  policy  was  statistically  significant—mean-
ing, again, that it was highly unlikely to occur by chance.