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Page Number: 23.0

20 

HUSTED v. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE 

Opinion of the Court 

in the mail,” post, at 13), the dissent argues that the fail-
ure to send back the card in question “has no tendency to 
reveal  accurately  whether  the  registered  voter  has 
changed  residences”;  it  is  an  “irrelevant  factor”  that 
“shows nothing at all that is statutorily significant.”  Post, 
at 13–14, 17. 
  Whatever  the  meaning  of  §20507(a)(4)’s  reference  to 
reasonableness,  the  principal  dissent’s  argument  fails 
since  it  is  the  federal  NVRA,  not  Ohio  law,  that  attaches 
importance  to  the  failure  to  send  back  the  card.    See 
§§20507(d)(1)(B)(i),  (d)(2)(A).    The  dissenters  may  not 
think  that  the  failure  to  send  back  the  card  means  any-
thing, but that was not Congress’s view.  The NVRA plainly 
reflects Congress’s judgment that the failure to send back 
the card, coupled with the failure to vote during the period 
covering  the  next  two  general  federal  elections,  is  signifi-
cant evidence that the addressee has moved. 
  It  is  not  our  prerogative  to  judge  the  reasonableness  of 
that  congressional  judgment,  but  we  note  that,  whatever 
the  general  “human  tendency”  may  be  with  respect  to 
mailing  back  cards  received  in  the  mail,  the  notice  sent 
under  subsection  (d)  is  nothing  like  the  solicitations  for 
commercial  products  or  contributions  that  recipients  may 
routinely  discard.    The  notice  in  question  here  warns 
recipients  that  unless they  take  the simple  and  easy step 
of  mailing  back  the  preaddressed, postage  prepaid  card—
or take the equally easy step of updating their information 
online—their names may be removed from the voting rolls 
if they do not vote during the next four years.  See Record 
295–296, 357.  It was Congress’s judgment that a reasona-
ble person with an interest in voting is not likely to ignore 
notice of this sort. 

2 
  JUSTICE  SOTOMAYOR’s  dissent  says  nothing  about  what 
is  relevant  in  this  case—namely,  the  language  of  the