Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-980_f2q3.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

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HUSTED v. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE 

Opinion of the Court 

nonvoting as part of a test for removal. 
  Another  provision  of  HAVA  makes  this  point  more 
directly.    After  directing  that  “registrants  who  have  not 
responded to a notice and . . . have not voted in 2 consecu-
tive general elections for Federal office shall be removed,” 
it  adds  that  “no  registrant  may  be removed  solely  by  rea-
son of a failure to vote.”  §21083(a)(4)(A) (emphasis added). 

B 
  Since  1994,  Ohio  has  used  two  procedures  to  identify 
and  remove  voters  who  have 
lost  their  residency 
qualification. 
  First, the State utilizes the Postal Service option set out 
in  the  NVRA.    The  State  sends  notices  to  registrants 
whom  the  Postal  Service’s  “national  change  of  address 
service” identifies as having moved.  Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 
§3503.21(B)(1).    This  procedure  is  undisputedly  lawful.  
See 52 U. S. C. §20507(c)(1). 
  But  because  according  to  the  Postal  Service  “[a]s  many 
as 40 percent of people who move do not inform the Postal 
Service,”3 Ohio does not rely on this information alone.  In 
its  so-called  Supplemental  Process,  Ohio  “identif[ies] 
electors  whose  lack  of  voter  activity  indicates  they  may 
have moved.”  Record 401 (emphasis deleted).  Under this 
process,  Ohio  sends  notices  to  registrants  who  have  “not 
engage[d] in any voter activity for a period of two consecu-
tive years.”  Id., at 1509.  “Voter activity” includes “casting 
a  ballot”  in  any  election—whether  general,  primary,  or 
special  and  whether  federal,  state,  or  local.    See  id.,  at 
1507.    (And  Ohio  regularly  holds  elections  on  both  even 
and  odd  years.)    Moreover,  the  term  “voter  activity”  is 

—————— 

3 U. S.  Postal  Service,  Office  of  Inspector  Gen.,  MS–MA–15–006, 
Strategies for Reducing Undeliverable as Addressed Mail 15 (2015); see 
also Brief for Buckeye Institute as Amicus Curiae 10.  Respondents and 
one of their amici dispute this statistic.  See Tr. of Oral Arg. 46; Brief 
for Asian Americans Advancing Justice et al. as Amici Curiae 27–28.