Opinion ID: 2973599
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: equality and voting procedures

Text: The majority holds that the certification and use of non-notice voting technology in one county but not in another violates the Equal Protection Clause because “punch card and centralcount optical scan technologies result in a greater likelihood that one’s vote will not be counted on the same terms as the vote of someone in a notice county.” Maj. Op. at 23. Notwithstanding its cautionary language to the contrary, see Maj. Op. at 28, the majority is calling for virtually absolute equality in voting methods and procedures across all electoral districts in Ohio. A closer look at some of the relevant numbers tells much of the story. The key statistic, as the plaintiffs present it, is that the residual-vote rate across the state was 2.29% for punch-card machines, 0.94% for electronic-voting machines, 1.04% for lever machines, and 1.15% for precinctcount optical scanners. In other words, the error rate in punch-card districts is twice that of counties with precinct-count optical scan equipment, and more than twice that of counties using lever or electronic-voting machines. The plaintiffs also rely on direct inter-county comparisons, pointing out that Cuyahoga County, which used punch-cards in the presidential elections at issue, had an error rate four times higher than Franklin County, where electronic-voting machines were used. No. 05-3044 Stewart, et al. v. Blackwell, et al. Page 42 What the majority does not indicate, however, is which of these numbers is constitutionally significant. Is the constitutional problem the fact that voters in punch-card districts face an error rate twice as high as voters in precinct-count optical-scan districts? If so, then improvements in technology will not necessarily cure the equal protection problem. This is so because a voter in a county with a much-improved residual vote rate of 0.2% could point to a neighboring county where the rate is 0.1% and say the same thing—namely, that the error rate in her county is twice as high as in the neighboring county. Moreover, as voting technology improves and error rates decline, whatever disparities remain among the different types of voting equipment will be magnified. That is to say, even a technology that yields a negligible error rate of 0.1% might violate the Equal Protection Clause if other jurisdictions within the state employ technology with a rate of 0.01%, which is one-tenth as high. The majority refers to a “greater likelihood” that a vote will not be counted, but fails to articulate a coherent constitutional threshold—a point at which such a likelihood renders state voting practices unconstitutional. Inter-county comparisons likewise fail to clarify the majority’s constitutional ruling. According to the plaintiffs, a disparity such as the one between Franklin and Cuyahoga Counties—where the residual-vote rate in the latter is four times that of the former—triggers strict scrutiny and, in all likelihood, dooms the challenged county practice. Under that logic, however, punch cards and central-count optical scan equipment are not the only voting mechanisms that might violate the Equal Protection Clause. Lucas County, which used a lever-style AVM (Automatic Voting Machine), had a residual vote rate of 0.4% in the 2000 presidential election. See Stewart v. Blackwell, 356 F. Supp. 2d 791, 826 (S.D. Ohio 2004). In that same election, Ross County used electronic voting and had a residual rate of 1.2%—three times that of Lucas County. See id. Do these numbers dictate that, in a suit by a voter from Ross County, the county’s decision to use electronic-voting machines should be reviewed under a strict-scrutiny standard? After all, the continued use of the voting machines subjects that voter to a “greater likelihood” than her counterpart in Lucas County that her vote will be excluded as improperly cast. The strict-scrutiny standard exacerbates the hazards posed by the majority’s inexact approach. Any incremental change that leads to a potential disparity in voter-error rates becomes susceptible to legal challenges in which the state must show that its chosen practice or regulation is “necessary to promote a compelling state interest.” Mixon v. Ohio, 193 F.3d 389, 402 (6th Cir. 1999); see also Craigmiles v. Giles, 312 F.3d 220, 223 (6th Cir. 2002) (explaining that a challenged state regulation survives strict scrutiny only if it “serve[s] a compelling state purpose and [is] narrowly tailored to achieving that purpose”). But there is no guarantee that local governments would be able to satisfy this stringent standard when making the most mundane of decisions, such as replacing one brand of electronic-voting equipment (with, say, a 0.2% residual-vote rate) with another that happens to have a 0.4% residual-vote rate. What kind of justification would suffice, and how could the governmental body prove that the chosen course constituted the least restrictive means of meeting its goal? The majority reads the above paragraphs as my faulting it for not articulating “a precise mathematical formula for determining when voting technology is constitutional and when it is not.” Maj. Op. at 27. But my reference to a “coherent constitutional threshold” does not require a concrete numerical error rate of x% or y%. See id. Rather, I have criticized the majority for failing to provide a framework for determining when the numerical differences that are unavoidable in the election setting become constitutionally problematic. In responding to this aspect of my dissent, however, the majority does no more than reaffirm its conclusion that the certification and use of nonnotice technology in this case is unconstitutional. The majority does not explain why these particular differences in voting technology are unconstitutional—a failing that exposes its approach as something other than the “reasoned analytical” one that it urges courts to employ “when confronted with difficult constitutional questions.” Id. The next court facing the “difficult constitutional questions” inherent in a statistics-based equal protection challenge to state voting No. 05-3044 Stewart, et al. v. Blackwell, et al. Page 43 practices will therefore know only that, on these facts and these numbers, Ohio’s use of varied voting methods violated the Equal Protection Clause, but will not know why. Moreover, I am not the one who has made number-crunching a dominant factor in the equal protection analysis. The plaintiffs themselves did so when they brought a case whose central premise is that statistical differences in voter-error rates suffice to show a constitutional violation. Because these numbers are squarely at issue, I have provided the above hypotheticals in order to highlight the majority’s failure to articulate a limiting principle beyond its assurances that it is not announcing a general rule and that “[f]uture claims of this sort will be evaluated with [legal, financial, and practical] factors in mind.” Maj. Op. at 28. The majority has responded by comparing apples to oranges, implying that the narrow “margin of decision” across all voters in recent presidential elections infuses the residual-vote rates at issue in the present case with added constitutional significance. Maj. Op. at 23 n.18. But again the majority does not explain how these state-by-state margin-of-victory numbers affect, if at all, the equal protection analysis. I assume, for example, that the majority does not mean to suggest that the comparative error rates of voting machines would have to be less than the 0.009% margin-ofvictory in Florida’s 2000 presidential election in order to pass constitutional muster. In the end, my colleagues attempt to disclaim their reliance on quantitative differences, describing “[a] judicially imposed mathematical formula for evaluating voting rights cases” as “purely arbitrary.” Maj. Op. at 27. Such a formula, however, strikes me as no more arbitrary than the majority’s declaration that the specific differential in error rates across voting districts in the present case violates the Equal Protection Clause. I also believe that the majority fails to grasp that “equality” is not a one-way street. If what the Equal Protection Clause requires is that counties across Ohio utilize voting mechanisms that yield a substantially similar residual-vote rate, then the use of punch-card ballots is presumably permissible so long as every county uses punch cards. That this voting method leads to a relatively high percentage of discarded votes statewide should make no difference to the equal protection analysis, since every voter would face the same chance of casting a ballot that is later deemed not to have been properly marked. In other words, while the majority presumes that requiring substantial equivalency in residual-vote rates across districts will prompt local governments to “ratchet up” to notice equipment, those governments would also be free to turn the ratchet down to cheaper non-notice technology. This all-or-nothing approach carries with it substantial practical concerns. As Professor Hasen observed, when one district adopts a new voting method designed to decrease the percentage of voter error, voters in districts that have not yet implemented the new method would have a colorable claim, under the majority’s theory, that their constitutional rights have been violated. See Hasen, 29 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 401-02. The risk of a lawsuit each time improved technology emerges accordingly creates a perverse incentive for “freezing . . . voting mechanics at the current level of technology.” Id. at 402. Beyond the concern that the threat of lawsuits will halt innovation, the all-or-nothing approach increases the risk that technological setbacks could invalidate the electoral results on a statewide basis. Assume, for example, that one or more counties in Ohio want to experiment with Internet voting because such a mechanism might serve to decrease the error rate. If the trail-blazing counties are permitted to implement the new system on their own, security or logistical problems that call into question the validity of election results would affect only those counties, leaving intact the results from the rest of the state. On the other hand, if every county is required to simultaneously adopt a still imperfect system, a widespread technical failure could wipe out the entire state’s No. 05-3044 Stewart, et al. v. Blackwell, et al. Page 44 election results. Instant equality, while fine in theory, does not account for these realities of the electoral system. In light of the uncertain doctrinal foundations of and the practical problems posed by the majority’s approach, I believe that the proper course is to review the challenged state and county election practices under the rational-basis standard. The Ninth Circuit followed this course in Weber v. Shelley, 347 F.3d 1101, 1106 (9th Cir. 2003), a case in which the voter contested not the use of punch-card ballots, but rather the decision to abandon punch cards in favor of computerized voting. In rejecting the voter’s claim, the Ninth Circuit applied the Burdick framework, concluded that the increased risk of fraud inherent in the new technology did not severely restrict the right to vote, and upheld the officials’ decision as “a reasonable, politically neutral and non-discriminatory choice.” Id. at 1107. The same result should follow in the present case. Voters in counties that employ non-notice voting technology—whether punch-card ballots or central-count optical-scan equipment—do face a slightly elevated chance that a ballot they believe was properly marked will later be found invalid. In my view, however, this slight increase in the risk of improperly marking a ballot simply does not constitute a “severe restriction” on the right to vote. See Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434. We should not, after all, lose sight of the fact that nearly 98% of the votes cast even in the punch-card counties were properly counted in the 2000 presidential election. The Secretary of State’s decision to certify different types of voting equipment, and the counties’ decision to use those mechanisms, are therefore subject to rational-basis review, where “the State’s important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify” the government action. Id. at 434 (citation and quotation marks omitted); accord Weber, 347 F.3d at 1106. Like the district court, I believe that the government defendants have proffered sufficient reasons for their actions to survive the highly deferential rational-basis standard of review. See FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 313 (1993) (explaining that legislation is presumably valid and “must be upheld against equal protection challenge if there is any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the” provision at issue). The majority dismisses the state’s concerns about the cost and administrability of the new voting systems, Maj. Op. at 22, but does not even mention a primary justification given by the state and accepted by the district court—that of security. Concerns about potential “computer manipulation and fraudulent voting,” according to one of the experts who testified, were substantial enough to delay the certification of DRE voting machines in the months leading up to the November 2004 elections. See Stewart, 356 F. Supp. 2d at 803 n.15. Recent events have revealed that these concerns were far from illusory. See Ann E. Marinow, Touch-Screen Voting Fallible, Ehrlich Says, Wash. Post, March 6, 2006, at B01 (discussing Maryland’s decision to abandon its $90 million electronic-voting system because of concerns that the system was “vulnerable to tampering”). The state might also have worried about the all-or-nothing aspect of some DRE voting systems, which, unlike punch-card ballots, do not allow a voter who mistakenly casts an incomplete ballot to fill out a new ballot. See Stewart, 356 F. Supp. 2d at 803 n.14. These justifications suffice to show that the government defendants had a rational basis for choosing the challenged voting methods. Furthermore, for the reasons that I mentioned briefly in Part I above, I cannot accept the majority’s attempt to classify the plaintiffs’ claims as covered by the older Supreme Court precedents on voter-qualification requirements and the weighting of votes. The majority cites to the Court’s decision in Harper, 383 U.S. at 668, insisting that “[t]he technology provided to a voter by the State, like that voter’s wealth, has no relation to voting qualifications or the value of that vote.” Maj. Op. at 22 (emphasis added). This statement conflates two different inquiries. Harper and other cases recognize that a state can determine voter qualifications absent invidious discrimination. See, e.g., Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 336 (1972) (citing Harper and other cases that hold that “States have the power to impose voter qualifications, and to regulate access to the franchise in other No. 05-3044 Stewart, et al. v. Blackwell, et al. Page 45 ways”). Other decisions recognize that states generally have wide latitude in controlling the administration of elections. See, e.g., Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 730 (1974) (“[A]s a practical matter, there must be a substantial regulation of elections if they are to be fair and honest and if some sort of order, rather than chaos, is to accompany the democratic processes.”). The plaintiffs’ challenge in the present case goes to this latter ground—election administration—not voter qualifications. Harper, and its emphasis on the irrelevance of wealth as a factor for determining voter eligibility, is thus inapposite. Reynolds also does not control the outcome of the present case. The use of non-notice voting technology—even assuming that such technology leads to appreciably higher rates of residual votes—is not the same as “[w]eighting the votes of citizens differently.” Maj. Op. at 23 (quoting Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 563). Again confusing the refusal to count an improperly marked ballot with a state’s ascribing greater value to the votes of people living in one area rather than another, the majority asserts that voters in non-notice districts “have an unequal chance of their vote being counted, not as a result of any action on the part of the voter, but because of the different technology utilized.” Maj. Op. at 23. I agree with the district court, however, that the improper marking of a ballot is primarily due to the voter’s own actions, however unintentional those actions may have been. See Stewart, 356 F. Supp. 2d at 803 (“[T]he voter has every opportunity to check the punch card ballot before submitting it to the election official at the polls and to be given a new ballot if a mistake is discovered.”). So although the technology utilized has a statistical correlation to residualvote rates, a person’s failed attempted to cast a vote is primarily the result of human error. Some technologies admittedly account for such human error better than others. Until today, however, the Equal Protection Clause has not served as a check on human error in federal elections. Technology that dilutes voting strength, the majority tells us, “is no less a [constitutional] violation than any other invidious method.” Maj. Op. at 24. But the use of different voting mechanisms has little to do with the type of “invidious discrimination” that the Equal Protection Clause was designed to prevent. That is why I believe that many of the broad statements in the majority opinion, although eloquent, are ultimately hollow. E.g., Maj. Op. at 31 (“Violations of the Equal Protection Clause are no less deserving of protection because they are accomplished with a modern machine than with outdated prejudices.”). However unpleasant the prospect, human error remains a part of the democratic process, and no constitutional rule is going to change that fact. See Powell v. Power, 436 F.2d 84, 88 (2d Cir. 1970) (holding that neither the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment nor Article I, § 2 of the Constitution “guarantee against errors in the administration of an election”). What does have more potential to reduce the effect of human error on election results is incremental change of the kind that Congress enacted in the Help America Vote Act of 2002.