Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-980_f2q3.pdf
Page Number: 21.0

18 

HUSTED v. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE 

Opinion of the Court 

of  two  consecutive  general  elections  was  a  good  indicator 
of  change  of  residence,  since  it  made  nonvoting  for  that 
period  an  element  of  subsection  (d)’s  requirements  for 
removal.    In  a  similar  vein,  the  Ohio  Legislature  appar- 
ently thought that nonvoting for two years was sufficiently 
correlated with  a  change  of  residence  to  justify  sending  a 
return card. 
  What  matters  for  present  purposes  is  not  whether  the 
Ohio  Legislature  overestimated  the  correlation  between 
nonvoting and moving or whether it reached a wise policy 
judgment about when return cards should be sent.  For us, 
all that matters is that no provision of the NVRA prohibits 
the legislature from implementing that judgment.  Neither 
subsection  (d)  nor  any  other  provision  of  the  NVRA  de-
mands  that  a  State  have  some  particular  quantum  of 
evidence  of  a  change  of  residence  before  sending  a  regis-
trant  a  return  card.    So  long  as  the  trigger  for  sending 
such  notices  is  “uniform,  nondiscriminatory,  and  in  com-
pliance  with  the  Voting  Rights  Act,”  §20507(b)(1),  States 
can use whatever plan they think best.  That may be why 
not even the Sixth Circuit relied on this rationale. 
  Respondents attempt to find support for their argument 
in subsection (c), which allows States to send notices based 
on  Postal  Service  change-of-address  information.    This 
provision,  they  argue,  implicitly  sets  a  minimum  reliabil-
ity  requirement.    Thus,  they  claim,  a  State may  not  send 
out  a  return  card  unless  its  evidence  of  change  of  resi-
dence is at least as probative as the information obtained 
from the Postal Service.  See Tr. of Oral Arg. 56. 
  Nothing in subsection (c) suggests that it is designed to 
play  this  role.    Subsection  (c)  says  that  “[a]  State  may 
meet”  its  obligation  “to  remove  the  names”  of  ineligible 
voters  on  change-of-residence  grounds  by  sending  notices 
to voters who are shown by the Postal Service information 
to have moved, but subsection (c) does not even hint that it 
imposes  any  sort  of  minimum  reliability  requirement  for