Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/679/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 11:57:06+00:00

Document:
Arizona's 50-day durational voter residency and registration requirements as applied to other than presidential elections held constitutionally permissible, in light of Arizona's special problems arising from the State's legitimate needs to correct registrations accomplished by volunteer personnel and to interrupt registration work to take care of activities occasioned by its fall primaries.
as applied to special, primary, or general elections involving state and local officials, are supported by sufficiently strong local interests to pass constitutional muster. We agree, and reverse.
In Dunn v. Blumstein, we struck down Tennessee's durational voter residency requirement of one year in the State and three months in the county. We recognized that a person does not have a federal constitutional right to walk up to a voting place on election day and demand a ballot. States have valid and sufficient interests in providing for some period of time prior to an election -- in order to prepare adequate voter records and protect its electoral processes from possible frauds. A year, or even three months, was found too long, particularly in the context of "the judgment of the Tennessee lawmakers," who had set "the cut-off point for registration [at] 30 days before an election. . . ." 405 U.S. at 405 U. S. 349. The Arizona scheme, however, stands in a different light. The durational residency requirement is only 50 days, not a year or even three months. Moreover, unlike Tennessee's, the Arizona requirement is tied to the closing of the State's registration process at 50 days prior to elections, and reflects a state legislative judgment that the period is necessary to achieve the State's legitimate goals.
the "completeness and correctness" of each precinct register. Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 1155. The District Court itself noted that there were estimates that, "in Maricopa County alone, some 4,400 registered voters might be denied the right to vote if the county voter list is in error by only one percent."
An additional complicating factor in Arizona registration procedures is the State's fall primary system. The uncontradicted testimony demonstrates that, in the weeks preceding the deadline for registration in general elections -- a period marked by a curve toward the "peak" in terms of the registration affidavits received -- county recorders and their staffs are unable to process the incoming affidavits because of their work in the fall primaries. It is only after the primaries are over that the officials can return to the accumulated backlog of registration affidavits and undertake to process them in accordance with applicable statutory requirements.
"[f]ixing a constitutionally acceptable period is surely a matter of degree. It is sufficient to note here that 30 days appears to be an ample period of time for the State to complete whatever administrative tasks are necessary to prevent fraud -- and a year, or three months, too much."
405 U.S. at 405 U. S. 348. In the present case, we are confronted with a recent and amply justifiable legislative judgment that 50 days, rather than 30, is necessary to promote the State's important interest in accurate voter lists. The Constitution is not so rigid that that determination and others like it may not stand.
The requirements appear, respectively, at Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. §§ 1101(3) and 1107. These provisions were enacted after our decision in Dunn v. Blumstein.
Appellees are a deputy registrar in Maricopa County and a resident of Maricopa County.
Section 1973aa-1 withstood constitutional attack in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112 (1970).
In Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 405 U. S. 348 (1972), just last Term, we held that a 30-day residency requirement provided the State with "an ample period of time . . . to complete whatever administrative tasks are necessary to prevent fraud" in the process of voter registration. We made that judgment in light of the facts that Congress had made a similar judgment as to presidential and vice-presidential elections, 2 U.S.C. § 1973aa-1(a)(6), that roughly half the States had periods of similar length, 1972-1973 Book of the States 36-37 (as of time of decision), and that the evidence needed to determine residency was relatively easy to find. The District Court, after hearing evidence about the administrative burdens in Arizona, found that appellants needed no longer than 30 days to complete the same tasks. I find nothing in the record that leads me to conclude that this judgment was erroneous.
solvable problems caused by untrained personnel in a relatively small office. Appellants presented no evidence that improvements in the administration of the deputy registrar system, including earlier recruitment and better training of deputy registrars and of data processing personnel in the central offices, could not be adopted before the next election. If, as we held in Dunn, the State "cannot choose means which unnecessarily burden or restrict constitutionally protected activity," and if the State must carry "a heavy burden of justification," 405 U.S. at 405 U. S. 343, surely it must show that it cannot, by better administration, eliminate the errors that justified a 50-day period in 1972. The District Court, in my view, correctly concluded that "the State has presented no facts demonstrating a compelling interest" in its 50-day requirement.
The second "complicating factor" is said to be the burden on county recorders caused by the need to interrupt the processing of affidavits filed by new registrants in order for them to work on the fall primaries. Here, too, the appellants showed no need to use small staffs. It is by no means obvious that the recorders' staffs could not be increased temporarily to deal with this "complication." Certainly that is a method of processing affidavits which less seriously burdens the right to vote.
"And if there are other, reasonable ways to achieve those goals with a lesser burden on constitutionally protected activity, a State may not choose the way of greater interference."
Dunn v. Blumstein, supra, at 405 U. S. 343.
are given absentee ballots. This eliminates the necessity to prepare a separate list of registration lists. Any administrative problems caused by the inability to correct misspellings, to alphabetize the lists, and to determine in which precinct the voter lived -- the only difficulties which appellants mentioned in their testimony * -- could be eliminated by similar treatment of late registrants for all elections. And if these voters did not have to appear at the polls, the fears of deterring other voters by delays at the polling places would disappear.
the right to vote than do durational residency requirements, which bar a newly arrived voter from any participation in the elections. Serious administrative problems might justify the less severe impairment, but a total bar to participation can be justified only by administrative problems of the highest order.
In short, the evidence produced below abundantly supports the District Court's conclusion that appellants had failed to carry the heavy burden of justifying the 50-day limitation period in light of reasonably available and less restrictive alternatives. If this Court has drawn a line beyond which reliance on administrative inconvenience is extremely questionable, as we did in Dunn, we can avoid an unprincipled numbers game only if we insist that any deviations from the line we have drawn, after mature consideration, be justified by far more substantial evidence than that produced in the District Court by appellants. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the District Court.
* Appellant Marston testified that there would be difficulty in locating the proper precincts and school districts for each registrant. Again, this pertains exclusively to the election in 1972, because of several nonrecurring facts: the State had recently "cleansed" its voting lists, dropping everyone from the rolls and requiring re-registration of every voter; the State had just been redistricted; and a statute rescheduling school board elections caused transitional problems. Difficulties in determining the proper precinct for each voter could be eliminated by a simple reprograming of the computer used by the registrars. Now the computer simply indicates an error if the address and the precinct entered on the registration form by the registrars are inconsistent; it would not be difficult for a programer to have the computer itself find the proper precinct. And, as appellant Marston testified, his task would not be difficult at all if he used an "on-line" system of processing the cards through the computer, rather than the present "batch" system.

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