Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 81.0

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

37 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

voting “is an activity that requires the active assistance of 
friends and neighbors.”  Ibid.  So in some Native communi-
ties, third-party collection of ballots—mostly by fellow clan 
members—became “standard practice.”  Ibid.  And stopping 
it, as one tribal election official testified, “would be a huge 
devastation.”  Ibid.; see Brief for Navajo Nation as Amicus 
Curiae 19–20 (explaining that ballot collection is how Nav-
ajo voters “have historically handled their mail-in ballots”). 
  Arizona has always regulated these activities to prevent 
fraud.  State law makes it a felony offense for a ballot col-
lector to fail to deliver a ballot.  See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. 
§16–1005 (Cum. Supp. 2020).  It is also a felony for a ballot 
collector to tamper with a ballot in any manner.  See ibid.  
And as the District Court found, “tamper evident envelopes 
and a rigorous voter signature verification procedure” pro-
tect  against  any  such  attempts.    329  F. Supp.  3d,  at  854.  
For those reasons and others, no fraud involving ballot col-
lection has ever come to light in the State.  Id., at 852. 

 Still, Arizona enacted—with full knowledge of the likely 
discriminatory consequences—the near-blanket ballot-collec-
tion  ban  challenged  here.    The  first  version  of  the  law—
much less stringent than the current one—passed the Ari-
zona Legislature in 2011.  But the Department of Justice, 
in its Section 5 review, expressed skepticism about the stat-
ute’s compliance with the Voting Rights Act, and the legis-
lature decided to repeal the law rather than see it blocked 
(and thereby incur statutory penalties).  See 329 F. Supp. 
3d, at 880; 52 U. S. C. §10303(a)(1)(E) (providing that if a 
state law fails Section 5 review, the State may not escape 
the preclearance process for another 10 years).  Then, this 
Court  decided  Shelby  County.    With  Section  5  gone,  the 
State Legislature felt free to proceed with a new ballot-col-
lection  ban,  despite  the  potentially  discriminatory  effects 
that  the  preclearance  process  had  revealed.    The  enacted 
law  contains  limited  exceptions  for  family  members  and 
caregivers.    But  it  includes  no  similar  exceptions  for  clan