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Page Number: 4.0

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BRNOVICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 

Syllabus 

processes,”  courts  must  consider  the  opportunities  provided  by  a 
State’s entire system of voting when assessing the burden imposed by 
a challenged provision.  Thus, where a State provides multiple ways to 
vote, any burden associated with one option cannot be evaluated with-
out also taking into account the other available means.  P. 18. 

(E) The  strength  of  the  state  interests—such  as  the  strong 
and  entirely  legitimate  state  interest  in  preventing  election  fraud—
served by a challenged voting rule is an important factor.  Ensuring 
that every vote is cast freely, without intimidation or undue influence, 
is also a valid and important state interest.  In determining whether a 
rule goes too far “based on the totality of circumstances,” rules that are 
supported by strong state interests are less likely to violate §2.  Pp. 
18–19. 

(ii) Some  factors identified  in  Thornburg  v.  Gingles,  478  U. S. 
30, were designed for use in vote-dilution cases and are plainly inap-
plicable in a case that involves a challenge to a facially neutral time, 
place, or manner voting rule.  While §2(b)’s “totality of circumstances” 
language permits consideration of certain other Gingles factors, their 
only relevance in cases involving neutral time, place, and manner rules 
is to show that minority group members suffered discrimination in the 
past and that effects of that discrimination persist.  The disparate-im-
pact  model  employed  in  Title  VII  and  Fair  Housing  Act  cases is  not 
useful here.  Pp. 19–21. 

(4) Section 2(b) directs courts to consider “the totality of circum-
stances,” but the dissent would make §2 turn almost entirely on one 
circumstance: disparate impact.  The dissent also would adopt a least-
restrictive means requirement that would force a State to prove that 
the interest served by its voting rule could not be accomplished in any 
other less burdensome way.  Such a requirement has no footing in the 
text of §2 or the Court’s precedent construing it and would have the 
potential to invalidate just about any voting rule a State adopts.  Sec-
tion 2 of the VRA provides vital protection against discriminatory vot-
ing rules, and no one suggests that discrimination in voting has been 
extirpated or that the threat has been eliminated.  Even so, §2 does 
not  transfer  the  States’  authority  to  set  non-discriminatory  voting 
rules to the federal courts.  Pp. 21–25. 

(c) Neither  Arizona’s  out-of-precinct  policy  nor  its  ballot-collection 

law violates §2 of the VRA.  Pp. 25–34. 

(1) Having to identify one’s polling place and then travel there to 
vote  does  not  exceed  the  “usual  burdens  of  voting.”    Crawford,  553 
U. S., at 198.  In addition, the State made extensive efforts to reduce 
the impact of the out-of-precinct policy on the number of valid votes 
ultimately cast, e.g., by sending a sample ballot to each household that 
includes a voter’s proper polling location.  The burdens of identifying