Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 36.0

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BRNOVICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 

Opinion of the Court 

elections to vote in whichever place is most convenient even 
if they know that it is not their assigned polling place.  See 
id., at 1065–1066 (opinion of Bybee, J.). 
  In light of the modest burdens allegedly imposed by Ari-
zona’s out-of-precinct policy, the small size of its disparate 
impact, and the State’s justifications, we conclude the rule 
does not violate §2 of the VRA.18 

B 
  HB 2023 likewise passes muster under the results test of 
§2.  Arizonans who receive early ballots can submit them by 
going to a mailbox, a post office, an early ballot drop box, or 
an  authorized  election  official’s  office  within  the  27-day 
early voting period.  They can also drop off their ballots at 
any  polling  place  or  voting  center  on  election  day,  and  in 
order  to  do  so,  they  can  skip  the  line  of  voters  waiting  to 
vote  in  person.    329  F. Supp.  3d,  at  839  (citing  ECF  Doc. 
361, ¶57).  Making any of these trips—much like traveling 
to  an  assigned  polling  place—falls  squarely  within  the 
heartland of the “usual burdens of voting.”  Crawford, 553 
U. S., at 198 (opinion of Stevens, J.).  And voters can also 
ask  a  statutorily  authorized  proxy—a  family  member,  a 
household member, or a caregiver—to mail a ballot or drop 

—————— 

18 In arguing that Arizona’s out-of-precinct policy violates §2, the dis-
sent focuses on the State’s decisions about the siting of polling places and 
the frequency with which voting precincts are changed.  See post, at 33 
(“Much  of  the  story  has  to  do  with  the  siting  and  shifting  of  polling 
places”).  But the plaintiffs did not challenge those practices.  See 329 
F. Supp. 3d, at 873 (“Plaintiffs . . . do not challenge the manner in which 
Arizona counties allocate and assign polling places or Arizona’s require-
ment  that  voters  re-register to  vote  when  they  move”).   The  dissent  is 
thus  left  with  the  unenviable  task  of  explaining  how  something  like  a 
0.5% disparity in discarded ballots between minority and non-minority 
groups suffices to render Arizona’s political processes not equally open to 
participation.  See supra, at 27–28.  A voting rule with that effect would 
not  be—to  use  the  dissent’s  florid  example—one  that  a  “minority  vote 
suppressor in Arizona” would want in his or her “bag of tricks.”  Post, at 
33.