Court Opinion

ID: 9723967
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:39:42.774253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:53.804018
License: Public Domain

OREN R. LEWIS, District Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with my colleagues that Virginia has overreached its [federal] constitutional power to fix the qualifications of voters.
They reach this conclusion in face of the Supreme Court’s pronouncement in Pope v. Williams, 193 U.S. 621, 24 S.Ct. 573, 48 L.Ed. 817 (1904), that a year’s residence in the state as a prerequisite to voting therein was not violative of the Federal Constitution as against a citizen of another state moving into the state after the enactment of the requirement.
*847This is precisely the residential requirement1 prescribed by the Virginia Constitution.
The same question as the Buffords raise here was also raised in the Maryland ease2 — namely — such a state constitutional requirement violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in that it amounts to an irrational or unreasonable discrimination.
The three-judge Maryland court held to the contrary and denied the petitioners their right to vote in Maryland congressional elections.
I would deny the Buffords and those similarly situated the right to participate in Virginia congressional and local elections this coming November 3rd for the same reasons.
Although the Buffords’ privilege to vote in Virginia may not be unreasonably abridged — they must have the qualifications for electors of the Virginia House of Delegates — These they do not have.
If Virginia’s present durational residential period is to be reduced to six months or less as a prerequisite for voting, as the Buffords would have it — such can only be authorized by the qualified voters of Virginia 3 unless the Supreme Court of the United States reverses its holding in Pope and holds the twelvemonth residential qualification there approved to be now constitutionally impermissible.
This Court, instead of following Pope and Drueding, has elected to follow Burg4 and Blumstein,5 both of which require the state to show a compelling state interest to [constitutionally] support any restrictions on the right to vote
—-The Supreme Court has, so far, only used this yardstick in determining whether additional impediments may be engrafted upon the traditional residential and age voter requirements.
I would not jeopardize the validity of the coming Virginia congressional and local election by allowing the petitioners to vote therein 6 — Such could be the result if the Supreme Court on appeal reaffirms its holding in Pope.
To forestall such a result, the state should be directed to impound and count the ballots cast by petitioners and those similarly situated separate and apart from the remaining ballots.

. Virginia's requirement is a year’s residence in tile state as a prerequisite to voting therein — Thirty-one sister states require like or longer durational qualification.

. Drueding v. Devlin, 234 F.Supp. 721 (1964).

. They are scheduled to vote on this question this coming November 3rd. I would give them that right unimpeded by our decision — The question here presented may then be moot. See Hall v. Beals, 396 U.S. 45, 90 S.Ct. 200. 24 L.Ed.2d 214 (1969).

. Burg v. Canniffe, 315 F.Supp. 380 (D.Mass.1970).

. Blumstein v. Ellington (M.D.Tenn.1970).

. I have been informed tlmt the Arizona and Wisconsin three-judge courts have denied new residents of those states the privilege of voting in the coming congressional election.