Court Opinion

ID: 9696808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:59:07.493731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:49.738386
License: Public Domain

LEADBETTER, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I join the opinion of the majority in section IV (standing of petitioner Williams). As to sections I and II regarding absentee ballots, I concur in the result. As to section III (five-year registration ban for released prisoners), I must respectfully dissent.
Article VII, Section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution specifically deals with absentee voting. It provides, inter alia:
(a) The Legislature shall, by general law, provide a manner in which, and the time and place at which, qualified electors who may, on the occurrence of any election, be absent from the municipality of their residence, because their duties, occupation or business require them to be elsewhere or who, on the occurrence of any election, are unable to attend at their proper polling places because of illness or physical disability or who will not attend a polling place because of the observance of a religious holiday or who cannot vote because of election day duties, in the case of a county employee, may vote, and for the return and canvass of their votes in the election district in which they respectively reside.
*455Since incarcerated persons do not fall within the categories of those guaranteed the right to vote by absentee ballot, it must follow that the legislature is under no constitutional obligation to allow them to do so. Because the constitution itself specifically deals with the absentee ballot issue, I would not address the more general (and more difficult)1 question whether the General Assembly may restrict the definition of “qualified elector” beyond the terms set forth in Article VII, Section 1.
With respect to the five-year registration ban, I cannot join the majority in holding that the law unfairly discriminates between registered and unregistered ex-felons, not because I find the analysis to be lacking in merit, but because the issue was not raised by petitioners. Instead, petitioners claim that the registration ban causes them to be disenfranchised in violation of Article VII, Section 1 and deprives them of a fundamental right. As to these arguments, I agree with Judge McGinley’s dissent that binding precedent requires us to sustain the preliminary objections. (Indeed, the majority relies upon the same authorities in sustaining the preliminary objections as to the absentee ballot question.) Petitioners further argue that the five-year ban violates the anti-discrimination provisions of Article I, Section 26 because it has a disparate impact on black voters. However, as the Supreme Court has noted:
Presented with a neutral state law that produces disproportionate effects along racial lines [the following approach should be applied] to determine whether the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:
“[0]fficial action will not be held unconstitutional solely because it results in a racially disproportionate impact, ... Proof of racially discriminatory intent or purpose is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”
Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222, 227, 105 S.Ct. 1916, 85 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985), quoting Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 264-65, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977).2 In this case petitioners have not alleged any racially discriminatory intent or purpose on the part of the General Assembly, nor have they averred any facts which are in any way suggestive of such an intent. Accordingly, I agree with Judge McGinley that all preliminary objections should be sustained.

. The majority opinion correctly cites controlling authority from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for the proposition that the legislature may do so. I believe petitioners make a credible argument for the reconsideration of this holding, but that is not our prerogative.

. The equal protection provisions of Article I, Section 26 are analyzed under the same standards as those arising under the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. Love v. Borough of Stroudsburg, 528 Pa. 320, 325, 597 A.2d 1137, 1139 (1991).