Opinion ID: 2973599
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: constitutional standard of review

Text: A reader unfamiliar with the Supreme Court’s voting-rights precedents might conclude after reading the majority opinion that federal courts have long dealt with challenges analogous to the one made in the present case, and that strict scrutiny has been universally recognized as the appropriate standard of review. The majority’s lengthy exposition of the fundamental nature of the right to vote cites many cases purportedly to that effect, taking quotations out of their factual and legal context. A closer examination of those cases, however, reveals that the challenges upheld in them were significantly different from the one before us in the present case, and that the appropriate standard of review in voting-rights cases is far from settled.
In Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963), for example, the Supreme Court invalidated Georgia’s “county unit system” for counting votes in party primaries that were held to nominate candidates for the United States Senate and several state offices. Under the original county unit system, a resident in the least populous county in the state “had an influence in the nomination of candidates equivalent to 99 residents” of the state’s most populous county. Id. at 371. The state amended the system to increase the influence of the more populous counties, but the district court still found that “the vote of each citizen counts for less and less as the population of the county of his residence increases.” Id. at 372-73 (citation omitted). Articulating its famous “one person, one vote” standard, id. at 381, the Court held that the county-unit system violated the Equal Protection No. 05-3044 Stewart, et al. v. Blackwell, et al. Page 34 Clause because it gave “one person . . . twice or 10 times the voting power of another person in a statewide election merely because he lives in a rural area or because he lives in the smallest rural county[.]” Id. at 379. The Court, without announcing a standard of review, explained that the constitutional infirmity in the Georgia system inhered in the system’s failure to provide “equality of voting power.” Id. at 381. Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), also cited by the majority, is not even an equal protection case. The Wesberry Court did not hold, as the majority states, that “Equal Protection requires substantial equality of population amongst the districts established by state legislatures for the election of members to the United States House of Representatives.” Maj. Op. at 12 (emphasis added). To the contrary, the Court relied exclusively on two sections found in Article I of the Constitution, stating explicitly that it did not need to “reach the arguments that the Georgia statute violates the Due Process, Equal Protection and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.” 376 U.S. at 8 n.10; see also Daniel Hays Lowenstein & Richard L. Hasen, Election Law: Cases and Materials 113 (2d ed. 2001) (“Wesberry was not decided under the Equal Protection Clause but under Article I, §§ 2 and 4 of the Constitution, and was thus applicable only to the United States House of Representatives.”). Article I, §§ 2 and 4 of the Constitution, the Court held, barred states from drawing congressional districts in which “a vote is worth more in one district than in another.” Id. at 8. Because it never addressed the plaintiff’s equal protection challenge, the Court did not need to—and did not—articulate the appropriate standard of review. The pathbreaking decision in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), marked the first time that the Court announced a standard of review similar to the strict-scrutiny standard currently applied in reviewing laws that discriminate against suspect classes or infringe on certain constitutionally protected rights. See id. at 562 (“[A]ny alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.”). Again, however, the Court announced this standard in a case that dealt with the “weighting of votes;” specifically, unequally populated state legislative districts. See Lowenstein & Hasen, supra, at 105, 114; Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 563 (“Overweighting and overvaluation of the votes of those living here has the certain effect of dilution and undervaluation of the votes of those living there.”). Although it invalidated Alabama’s legislative apportionment plan and held that both houses in a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a “substantially equal population basis,” the Court did not do so on the ground that the law was not narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest, see, e.g., Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 235 (1995), but instead because the existing apportionment plan violated the “one person, one vote” principle—that “the weight of a citizen’s vote cannot be made to depend on where he lives.” Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 567 (emphasis added). The two other cases subjecting state voting practices to strict scrutiny cited by the majority are likewise inapposite. In Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 668 (1966), the Court invalidated the applicable laws of the four remaining states that charged a poll tax to vote in state elections. The Court applied strict scrutiny in Harper, citing Reynolds for the proposition that, “where fundamental rights and liberties are asserted under the Equal Protection Clause, classifications [that] might invade or restrain them must be closely scrutinized and carefully confined.” Id. at 670. Virginia’s poll tax, the Court reasoned, determined the qualifications of voters on the basis of wealth, a ground that is “traditionally disfavored,” id. at 668, and was therefore unconstitutional. The second of the two cases is Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 334 (1972), where the Court struck down Tennessee’s requirement that, in order to qualify as a registered voter, a person must have resided in the state for at least one year and in the county for at least three months. Strict scrutiny was the appropriate standard of review, the Court held, because the durational-residency requirement affected two fundamental rights—the right to vote and the right to travel. See id. at 338 (explaining that strict scrutiny applied, despite an earlier durational-residency-requirement case No. 05-3044 Stewart, et al. v. Blackwell, et al. Page 35 using a less stringent standard of review, because the Tennessee law “penaliz[ed]” only people who had recently exercised their right to travel). Dunn is therefore unique because the Court faced a state law that impinged on two fundamental rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Indeed, courts since Dunn have emphasized the importance of both the Tennessee law’s impact on two constitutionally protected activities and Dunn’s status as a voter-qualification precedent. See, e.g., Donatelli v. Mitchell, 2 F.3d 508, 515 (3d Cir. 1993) (explaining that the Court in Dunn reviewed a law that both denied access to the ballot and “directly burdened citizens’ fundamental constitutional right to travel”); Greidinger v. Davis, 988 F.2d 1344, 1349 (4th Cir. 1993) (classifying Dunn as a case “involving voter qualifications and ballot access”). Stated simply, none of these Supreme Court precedents resembles the claim made by the plaintiffs in the present case. These plaintiffs do not allege that Ohio has imposed an impermissible voter-qualification requirement, as in Harper and Dunn. Nor do they argue that the votes in Ohio are “weighted” differently—that is, that a properly marked ballot “is worth more in one district than in another.” Wesberry, 376 U.S. at 8; see also Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 563. Instead, they maintain that voters in counties that employ inferior voting equipment “are subjected to a significantly greater risk that their votes will not be counted.” In other words, properly marked ballots are counted and accorded the same value everywhere in the state, but voters in some counties have a reduced chance of turning in a properly marked ballot that will actually be counted because certain voting methods do not catch the voters’ own inadvertent mistakes. This challenge to the nuts-and-bolts of election administration, regardless of its merit, cannot be equated with either discriminatory voter-qualification requirements or generally applicable state laws that deny “equality of voting power,” Gray, 372 U.S. at 381, which are the principal types of state actions that the Supreme Court has subjected to strict scrutiny. See generally Richard L. Hasen, Bush v. Gore and the Future of Equal Protection Law in Elections, 29 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 377, 393 (2001) (explaining that the Warren Court precedents govern only the equal opportunity to vote and the equal weighting of votes, not “equality in the procedures and mechanisms used for voting”).
The Supreme Court has never adhered to the view that all legislation or practices that affect the right to vote must be subjected to strict scrutiny. See Greidinger, 988 F.2d at 1350 (collecting cases in which the Supreme Court has applied rational-basis scrutiny in upholding the denial of absentee ballots to pretrial detainees and in sustaining a state requirement that persons seeking to vote in a primary must register with a political party a specified number of days before a general election). As the First Circuit succinctly explained, “[t]he Supreme Court has eschewed a hard-andfast rule, and instead has adopted a flexible framework for testing the validity of election regulations.” Werme v. Merrill, 84 F.3d 479, 483 (1st Cir. 1996). That “flexible framework” was most recently articulated by the Court in Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428 (1992), a case that the majority attempts to limit to the specific setting of political candidates’ access to the ballot. Maj. Op. at 14-16. I believe, however, that Burdick sets forth a general test for evaluating challenges to state voting laws and practices under the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore cannot be so easily “dismiss[ed].” Maj. Op. at 15. The Supreme Court in Burdick began by observing that “[e]lection laws will invariably impose some burden upon individual voters.” Burdick, 504 U.S. at 433; see also Harper, 383 U.S. at 673 (Black, J., dissenting) (“All voting laws treat some persons differently from others in some respects.”). Subjecting “every voting regulation to strict scrutiny,” the Court warned, “would tie the hands of States seeking to assure that elections are operated equitably and efficiently.” Burdick, 504 U.S. at 433. Courts facing challenges to state election laws or practices should therefore start by “weigh[ing] the character and magnitude of the asserted injury” to voting rights against the state’s No. 05-3044 Stewart, et al. v. Blackwell, et al. Page 36 articulated interests, “taking into consideration the extent to which those interests make it necessary to burden the [voter’s] rights.” Id. at 434 (citations and quotation marks omitted). The Court continued: Under this standard, the rigorousness of [the judicial] inquiry into the propriety of a state election law depends upon the extent to which a challenged regulation burdens First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Thus, . . . when those rights are subjected to severe restrictions, the regulation must be narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance. But when a state election law provision imposes only reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions upon the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of voters, the State’s important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify the restrictions. Id. (citations and quotation marks omitted). In other words, only state laws and regulations that impose “severe restrictions” on the right to vote should be subjected to strict scrutiny. Federal courts applying the Burdick framework have evaluated challenges to various state voting regulations under a rational-basis standard of review. See, e.g., Werme, 84 F.3d at 485-86 (upholding under rational-basis review a New Hampshire law that prevented a member of the Libertarian Party from serving as a ballot clerk on Election Day); Donatelli, 2 F.3d at 514-15 (upholding under rational-basis review a state reapportionment plan that temporarily assigned a state senator to a district that had not elected him); see also id. at 515-16 (collecting court-of-appeals and district-court cases that reviewed claims of “temporary disenfranchisement” due to reapportionment under a rational-basis standard). These cases from our sister circuits serve as reminder that, the tone of the majority opinion notwithstanding, many state and local voting regulations are evaluated under the rational-basis standard of review. I believe that this court’s decision in Mixon v. Ohio, 193 F.3d 389 (6th Cir. 1999), establishes a framework consistent with the one articulated by the Supreme Court in Burdick. In Mixon, this court held that state legislation that “grants the right to vote to some residents while denying the vote to others” is subject to strict scrutiny, whereas legislation that “does not infringe on the right to vote” is examined “under the rational basis standard.” Id. at 402. Two aspects of this statement stand out. The first is that Mixon might not readily apply to the present case because the plaintiffs have not challenged any legislation that “grants the right to vote to some while denying the vote to others.” See id. Instead, they are challenging “electoral practices,” none of which purport to grant the right to vote to anyone. This court has not yet decided whether the Mixon analysis applies to state practices other than legislation. Assuming that Mixon does apply, however, there is a second noteworthy aspect of the standard enunciated in that case—namely, that this court drew a distinction between state laws and regulations that “infringe on the right to vote” and those that do not. Id. This standard approximates the line drawn by the Supreme Court in Burdick, where the Court emphasized the difference between laws that severely restrict voting rights and those that “impose[] only reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions” on such rights. Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434. If we are to harmonize Mixon and Burdick, as I think we must, then we should review the challenged voting practices under the rational-basis standard because those practices do not “severe[ly] restrict[]” the plaintiffs’ right to vote. See id. Also consistent with Burdick is the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Weber v. Shelley, 347 F.3d 1101 (9th Cir. 2003), a case relied on by the district court below and one that I believe is directly on point. See Stewart v. Blackwell, 356 F. Supp. 2d 791, 800 (S.D. Ohio 2004). In Weber, a voter brought an Equal Protection challenge to a California county’s decision to replace paper ballots with an electronic-voting system. 347 F.3d at 1102. The computerized system, the voter maintained, was susceptible to manipulation and potential fraud because it lacked a paper audit trail. Id. at 1104- No. 05-3044 Stewart, et al. v. Blackwell, et al. Page 37 1105. Applying the Burdick framework, the Ninth Circuit held that the “use of paperless, touchscreen voting systems [did not] severely restrict[] the right to vote,” and that the voting procedure was therefore subject only to rational-basis review. Id. at 1106. Because the electronicvoting machines constituted a reasonable method of ameliorating the problems inherent in paper ballots, the change in voting procedures was rationally related to the state’s interest in “ensuring that elections are fair and orderly.” Id.; see also id. at 1107 (opining that the state and the county had “made a reasonable, politically neutral and non-discriminatory choice to certify [and to use] touchscreen systems as an alternative to paper ballots”); accord Am. Ass’n of People with Disabilities v. Shelley, 324 F. Supp. 2d 1120, 1127 (C.D. Cal. 2004) (reviewing the Calfiornia Secretary of State’s decision to decertify Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines under the rational-basis standard of review). Weber is significant for a number of reasons. First, when faced with an Equal Protection challenge to the type of voting technology certified by the Califorina Secretary of State and utilized by the county, the Ninth Circuit found the appropriate standard of review in Burdick—not in Reynolds, Harper, Dunn, or any other pre-Burdick precedents. See Weber, 347 F.3d at 1106. The second reason is that, in applying Burdick, the Ninth Circuit held that the increased potential for voter fraud with the new voting technology did not constitute a “severe restriction” on the right to vote, so that the decision to implement such electoral changes was subject only to rational-basis review. Id. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Weber is the closest on its facts to the challenge levied by the plaintiffs in the present case. Indeed, Weber is the exact converse of the present case. Whereas the plaintiffs here decry the refusal of the counties to utilize improved voting technologies, the voter in Weber complained precisely because her county had abandoned traditional paper ballots in favor of the newly available technology. The contrast between the two cases epitomizes the predicament in which election officials find themselves—damned if they upgrade voting machines, damned if they do not—and further supports adopting a constitutional standard of review that affords state and local officials the flexibility necessary to regulate an election system constantly in flux. I cannot help but note, however, the majority’s insistence that the result here would be the same even if it applied rational-basis scrutiny. Maj. Op. at 24. The majority makes this unsupported assertion despite having chided the district court for doing the same thing—that is, summarily concluding that the result would be the same regardless of the appropriate standard of review. Maj. Op. at 8. If the state’s proffered justifications for employing certain voting methods were truly as flimsy as the majority portrays them, then the majority would have no need to discuss at length why the state’s practices must be judged under the strict-scrutiny standard. The proper standard of review, in my opinion, is critical to the judicial inquiry in this case. Because I believe that the Supreme Court’s decision in Burdick has supplanted the factually and legally distinguishable precedents on which the majority relies, and that the use of different types of voting technologies does not constitute a severe restriction on the right to vote, I would evaluate the challenged voting practices under the rational-basis standard of review. I reach this conclusion notwithstanding the Court’s post-Burdick opinion in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000) (per curiam), a case whose precedential value, as I will explain, is at best questionable.