Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee

Summary

Arizona’s challenged voting regulations governing precinct-based election-day voting (rejecting ballots cast in the wrong precinct) and early mail-in voting (making it a crime for anyone other than an authorized proxy to possess the early ballot of another voter) do not violate §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; Arizona House Bill 2023 (enacting the early mail-in voting regulations) was not enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose.

Text

PRELIMINARY PRINT 
Volume 594 U. S. Part 2 
Pages 647–730 
OFFICIAL REPORTS 
OF 
THE SUPREME COURT 
July 1, 2021 
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF 
reporter of decisions 
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NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before 
the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter 
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, 
[email protected], of any typographical or other formal errors.

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OCTOBER TERM, 2020 647 
Syllabus 
BRNOVICH, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF ARIZONA, et 
al. v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE et al. 
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for 
the ninth circuit 
No. 19–1257. Argued March 2, 2021—Decided July 1, 2021* 
Arizona law generally makes it very easy to vote. Voters may cast their 
ballots on election day in person at a traditional precinct or a “voting 
center” in their county of residence. Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 16–411(B)(4). 
Arizonans also may cast an “early ballot” by mail up to 27 days before 
an election, §§ 16–541, 16–542(C), and they also may vote in person at 
an early voting location in each county, §§ 16–542(A), (E). These cases 
involve challenges under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) to 
aspects of the State's regulations governing precinct-based election-day 
voting and early mail-in voting. First, Arizonans who vote in person 
on election day in a county that uses the precinct system must vote in 
the precinct to which they are assigned based on their address. See 
§ 16–122; see also § 16–135. If a voter votes in the wrong precinct, the 
vote is not counted. Second, for Arizonans who vote early by mail, 
Arizona House Bill 2023 (HB 2023) makes it a crime for any person 
other than a postal worker, an elections offcial, or a voter's caregiver, 
family member, or household member to knowingly collect an early bal-
lot—either before or after it has been completed. §§ 16–1005(H)–(I). 
The Democratic National Committee and certain affliates fled 
suit, alleging that both the State's refusal to count ballots cast in the 
wrong precinct and its ballot-collection restriction had an adverse and 
disparate effect on the State's American Indian, Hispanic, and African-
American citizens in violation of § 2 of the VRA. Additionally, they 
alleged that the ballot-collection restriction was “enacted with discrimi-
natory intent” and thus violated both § 2 of the VRA and the Fifteenth 
Amendment. The District Court rejected all of the plaintiffs' claims. 
The court found that the out-of-precinct policy had no “meaningfully 
disparate impact” on minority voters' opportunities to elect representa-
tives of their choice. Turning to the ballot-collection restriction, the 
court found that it was unlikely to cause “a meaningful inequality” in 
minority voters' electoral opportunities and that it had not been enacted 
with discriminatory intent. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit af-
frmed, but the en banc court reversed. It frst concluded that both 
*Together with No. 19–1258, Arizona Republican Party et al. v. Demo-
cratic National Committee et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

648 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Syllabus 
the out-of-precinct policy and the ballot-collection restriction imposed a 
disparate burden on minority voters because they were more likely to 
be adversely affected by those rules. The en banc court also held that 
the District Court had committed clear error in fnding that the ballot-
collection law was not enacted with discriminatory intent. 
Held: Arizona's out-of-precinct policy and HB 2023 do not violate § 2 of the 
VRA, and HB 2023 was not enacted with a racially discriminatory pur-
pose. Pp. 665–690. 
(a) Two threshold matters require the Court's attention. First, the 
Court rejects the contention that no petitioner has Article III standing 
to appeal the decision below as to the out-of-precinct policy. All that is 
needed to entertain an appeal of that issue is one party with standing. 
Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 
591 U. S. 657, 674, n. 6. Attorney General Brnovich, as an authorized 
representative of the State (which intervened below) in any action in 
federal court, fts the bill. See Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-
Hill, 587 U. S. –––, –––. Second, the Court declines in these cases to 
announce a test to govern all VRA § 2 challenges to rules that specify 
the time, place, or manner for casting ballots. It is suffcient for 
present purposes to identify certain guideposts that lead to the Court's 
decision in these cases. Pp. 665–666. 
(b) The Court's statutory interpretation starts with a careful consid-
eration of the text. Pp. 666–678. 
(1) The Court frst construed the current version of § 2 in Thorn-
burg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, which was a vote-dilution case where the 
Court took its cue from § 2's legislative history. The Court's many sub-
sequent vote-dilution cases have followed the path Gingles charted. 
Because the Court here considers for the frst time how § 2 applies to 
generally applicable time, place, or manner voting rules, it is appro-
priate to take a fresh look at the statutory text. Pp. 666–667. 
(2) In 1982, Congress amended the language in § 2 that had been 
interpreted to require proof of discriminatory intent by a plurality of 
the Court in Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55. In place of that language, 
§ 2(a) now uses the phrase “in a manner which results in a denial or 
abridgement of the right . . . to vote on account of race or color.” Sec-
tion 2(b) in turn explains what must be shown to establish a § 2 violation. 
Section 2(b) states that § 2 is violated only where “the political processes 
leading to nomination or election” are not “equally open to participa-
tion” by members of the relevant protected group “ in that its members 
have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to partici-
pate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” 
(Emphasis added.) In § 2(b), the phrase “in that” is “used to specify 
the respect in which a statement is true.” New Oxford American 
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Syllabus 
Dictionary 851. Thus, equal openness and equal opportunity are not 
separate requirements. Instead, it appears that the core of § 2(b) is the 
requirement that voting be “equally open.” The statute's reference to 
equal “opportunity” may stretch that concept to some degree to include 
consideration of a person's ability to use the means that are equally 
open. But equal openness remains the touchstone. Pp. 667–668. 
(3) Another important feature of § 2(b) is its “totality of circum-
stances” requirement. Any circumstance that has a logical bearing on 
whether voting is “equally open” and affords equal “opportunity” may 
be considered. Pp. 668–674. 
(i) The Court mentions several important circumstances but does 
not attempt to compile an exhaustive list. Pp. 668–672. 
(A) The size of the burden imposed by a challenged voting rule 
is highly relevant. Voting necessarily requires some effort and compli-
ance with some rules; thus, the concept of a voting system that is 
“equally open” and that furnishes equal “opportunity” to cast a ballot 
must tolerate the “usual burdens of voting.” Crawford v. Marion 
County Election Bd., 553 U. S. 181, 198. Mere inconvenience is insuff-
cient. P. 669. 
(B) The degree to which a voting rule departs from what was 
standard practice when § 2 was amended in 1982 is a relevant consider-
ation. The burdens associated with the rules in effect at that time are 
useful in gauging whether the burdens imposed by a challenged rule 
are suffcient to prevent voting from being equally “open” or furnishing 
an equal “opportunity” to vote in the sense meant by § 2. Widespread 
current use is also relevant. Pp. 669–671. 
(C) The size of any disparities in a rule's impact on members 
of different racial or ethnic groups is an important factor to consider. 
Even neutral regulations may well result in disparities in rates of voting 
and noncompliance with voting rules. The mere fact that there is some 
disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not 
equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to 
vote. And small disparities should not be artifcially magnifed. P. 671. 
(D) Consistent with § 2(b)'s reference to a States' “political 
processes,” courts must consider the opportunities provided by a State's 
entire system of voting when assessing the burden imposed by a chal-
lenged provision. Thus, where a State provides multiple ways to vote, 
any burden associated with one option cannot be evaluated without also 
taking into account the other available means. P. 671. 
(E) The strength of the state interests—such as the strong and 
entirely legitimate state interest in preventing election fraud—served 
by a challenged voting rule is an important factor. Ensuring that every 
vote is cast freely, without intimidation or undue infuence, is also a valid

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650 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Syllabus 
and important state interest. In determining whether a rule goes too 
far “based on the totality of circumstances,” rules that are supported 
by strong state interests are less likely to violate § 2. Pp. 671–672. 
(ii) Some factors identifed in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 
were designed for use in vote-dilution cases and are plainly inapplicable 
in a case that involves a challenge to a facially neutral time, place, or 
manner voting rule. While § 2(b)'s “totality of circumstances” language 
permits consideration of certain other Gingles factors, their only rele-
vance in cases involving neutral time, place, and manner rules is to show 
that minority group members suffered discrimination in the past and 
that effects of that discrimination persist. The disparate-impact model 
employed in Title VII and Fair Housing Act cases is not useful here. 
Pp. 672–674. 
(4) Section 2(b) directs courts to consider “the totality of circum-
stances,” but the dissent would make § 2 turn almost entirely on one 
circumstance: disparate impact. The dissent also would adopt a least-
restrictive means requirement that would force a State to prove that 
the interest served by its voting rule could not be accomplished in any 
other less burdensome way. Such a requirement has no footing in the 
text of § 2 or the Court's precedent construing it and would have the 
potential to invalidate just about any voting rule a State adopts. Sec-
tion 2 of the VRA provides vital protection against discriminatory vot-
ing rules, and no one suggests that discrimination in voting has been 
extirpated or that the threat has been eliminated. Even so, § 2 does 
not transfer the States' authority to set non-discriminatory voting rules 
to the federal courts. Pp. 674–678. 
(c) Neither Arizona's out-of-precinct policy nor its ballot-collection law 
violates § 2 of the VRA. Pp. 678–687. 
(1) Having to identify one's polling place and then travel there to 
vote does not exceed the “usual burdens of voting.” Crawford, 553 
U. S., at 198. In addition, the State made extensive efforts to reduce 
the impact of the out-of-precinct policy on the number of valid votes 
ultimately cast, e. g., by sending a sample ballot to each household that 
includes a voter's proper polling location. The burdens of identifying 
and traveling to one's assigned precinct are also modest when consider-
ing Arizona's “political processes” as a whole. The State offers other 
easy ways to vote, which likely explains why out-of-precinct votes on 
election day make up such a small and apparently diminishing portion 
of overall ballots cast. 
Next, the racial disparity in burdens allegedly caused by the out-of-
precinct policy is small in absolute terms. Of the Arizona counties that 
reported out-of-precinct ballots in the 2016 general election, a little over 
1% of Hispanic voters, 1% of African-American voters, and 1% of Native 
American voters who voted on election day cast an out-of-precinct bal-

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lot. For non-minority voters, the rate was around 0.5%. A procedure 
that appears to work for 98% or more of voters to whom it applies— 
minority and non-minority alike—is unlikely to render a system un-
equally open. 
Appropriate weight must be given to the important state interests 
furthered by precinct-based voting. It helps to distribute voters more 
evenly among polling places; it can put polling places closer to voter 
residences; and it helps to ensure that each voter receives a ballot that 
lists only the candidates and public questions on which he or she can 
vote. Precinct-based voting has a long pedigree in the United States, 
and the policy of not counting out-of-precinct ballots is widespread. 
The Court of Appeals discounted the State's interests because it found 
no evidence that a less restrictive alternative would threaten the integ-
rity of precinct-based voting. But § 2 does not require a State to show 
that its chosen policy is absolutely necessary or that a less restrictive 
means would not adequately serve the State's objectives. Considering 
the modest burdens allegedly imposed by Arizona's out-of-precinct pol-
icy, the small size of its disparate impact, and the State's justifcations, 
the rule does not violate § 2. Pp. 678–682. 
(2) Arizona's HB 2023 also passes muster under § 2. Arizonans can 
submit early ballots by going to a mailbox, a post offce, an early ballot 
drop box, or an authorized election offcial's offce. These options entail 
the “usual burdens of voting,” and assistance from a statutorily author-
ized proxy is also available. The State also makes special provision for 
certain groups of voters who are unable to use the early voting system. 
See § 16–549(C). And here, the plaintiffs were unable to show the ex-
tent to which HB 2023 disproportionately burdens minority voters. 
Even if the plaintiffs were able to demonstrate a disparate burden 
caused by HB 2023, the State's “compelling interest in preserving the 
integrity of its election procedures” would suffce to avoid § 2 liability. 
Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U. S. 1, 4. The Court of Appeals viewed the 
State's justifcations for HB 2023 as tenuous largely because there was 
no evidence of early ballot fraud in Arizona. But prevention of fraud 
is not the only legitimate interest served by restrictions on ballot collec-
tion. Third-party ballot collection can lead to pressure and intimida-
tion. Further, a State may take action to prevent election fraud with-
out waiting for it to occur within its own borders. Pp. 683–687. 
(d) HB 2023 was not enacted with a discriminatory purpose, as the 
District Court found. Appellate review of that conclusion is for clear 
error. Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U. S. 273, 287–288. The Dis-
trict Court's fnding on the question of discriminatory intent had ample 
support in the record. The court considered the historical background 
and the highly politicized sequence of events leading to HB 2023's enact-
ment; it looked for any departures from the normal legislative process;

652 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Syllabus 
it considered relevant legislative history; and it weighed the law's im-
pact on different racial groups. See Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan 
Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266–268. The court found 
HB 2023 to be the product of sincere legislative debate over the wisdom 
of early mail-in voting and the potential for fraud. And it took care to 
distinguish between racial motives and partisan motives. The District 
Court's interpretation of the evidence was plausible based on the record, 
so its permissible view is not clearly erroneous. See Anderson v. Bes-
semer City , 470 U. S. 564, 573–574. The Court of Appeals concluded 
that the District Court committed clear error by failing to apply a “cat's 
paw” theory—which analyzes whether an actor was a “dupe” who was 
“used by another to accomplish his purposes.” That theory has its ori-
gin in employment discrimination cases and has no application to legisla-
tive bodies. Pp. 687–690. 
948 F. 3d 989, reversed and remanded. 
Alito, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., 
and Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Gor-
such, J., fled a concurring opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined, post, 
p. 690. Kagan, J., fled a dissenting opinion, in which Breyer and Soto-
mayor, JJ., joined, post, p. 690. 
Michael A. Carvin argued the cause for private petition-
ers in No. 19–1258. With him on the briefs fled in both 
cases were Yaakov M. Roth, Anthony J. Dick, and Brett W. 
Johnson. Mark Brnovich, Attorney General of Arizona, ar-
gued the cause for state petitioners in No. 19–1257. With 
him on the briefs fled in both cases were Joseph A. Kane-
feld, Brunn W. Roysden III, Solicitor General, Drew C. En-
sign, Deputy Solicitor General, Kate B. Sawyer, Assistant 
Solicitor General, William S. Consovoy, and Tyler R. Green. 
Jessica Ring Amunson argued the cause for respondent 
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. With her on the 
brief in both cases was Sam Hirsch. Bruce V. Spiva argued 
the cause for respondent DNC et al. With him on the brief 
in both cases were Marc E. Elias, Elisabeth C. Frost, Lali-
tha D. Madduri, and Sarah R. Gonski.* 
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in both cases were fled for the 
United States as amicus curiae by Acting Solicitor General Wall, Has-
him M. Mooppan, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Daukas, 
Jonathan C. Bond, and Thomas E. Chandler; for the State of Ohio et 
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Opinion of the Court 
Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court. 
In these cases, we are called upon for the frst time to 
apply § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to regulations that 
al. by Dave Yost, Attorney General of Ohio, Benjamin M. Flowers, Solici-
tor General, Michael J. Hendershot, Chief Deputy Solicitor General, and 
Zachery P . Keller, Deputy Solicitor General, by Clyde Sniffen, Jr., Acting 
Attorney General of Alaska, and by the Attorneys General for their re-
spective jurisdictions as follows: Steve Marshall of Alabama, Leslie Rut-
ledge of Arkansas, Christopher M. Carr of Georgia, Lawrence G. Wasden 
of Idaho, Curtis T. Hill, Jr., of Indiana, Daniel Cameron of Kentucky, Jeff 
Landry of Louisiana, Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, 
Douglas J. Peterson of Nebraska, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, 
Mike Hunter of Oklahoma, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Jason Ravns-
borg of South Dakota, Herbert H. Slatery III of Tennessee, Ken Paxton 
of Texas, Sean D. Reyes of Utah, and Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia; 
for the American Constitutional Rights Union by John J. Park, Jr.; 
for Election Integrity Project California, Inc., et al. by Michael J. O'Neill, 
Matthew C. Forys, and Richard P . Hutchison; for the Honest Elections 
Project by Jonathan P . Lienhard; for Judicial Watch, Inc., et al. by 
H. Christopher Coates, Robert D. Popper, and T. Russell Nobile; for the 
Pacifc Legal Foundation et al. by Joshua P . Thompson and Christopher 
M. Kieser; for the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee by 
Jason Torchinsky and Jessica Furst Johnson; for Sen. Ted Cruz et al. by 
Bradley A. Benbrook, Stephen M. Duvernay, and Jonathan F. Mitchell; 
for Gov. Douglas A. Ducey et al. by Dominic E. Draye and Andrew G. 
Pappas; for Scott Fitzgerald et al. by Jessie Augustyn; for Gov. Kristi 
Noem by Gene C. Schaerr , Erik S. Jaffe, Hannah C. Smith, and Kathryn 
E. Tarbert; and for Helen Purcell by David J. Cantelme and D. Aaron 
Brown. 
J. Christian Adams fled a brief for the Public Interest Legal Founda-
tion et al. as amici curiae urging reversal in No. 19–1257. 
Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance in both cases were fled for the 
District of Columbia et al. by Karl A. Racine, Attorney General of the 
District of Columbia, Loren L. Alikhan, Solicitor General, Caroline S. Van 
Zile, Principal Deputy Solicitor General, and Harrison M. Stark, Assist-
ant Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective 
jurisdictions as follows: Xavier Becerra of California, Philip J. Weiser of 
Colorado, William Tong of Connecticut, Clare E. Connors of Hawaii, 
Kwame Raoul of Illinois, Aaron M. Frey of Maine, Brian E. Frosh of 
Maryland, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Aaron D. Ford of Nevada, 
Gurbir S. Grewal of New Jersey, Hector Balderas of New Mexico, Letitia 
James of New York, Ellen F. Rosenblum of Oregon, Peter F. Neronha of

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654 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Opinion of the Court 
govern how ballots are collected and counted. Arizona law 
generally makes it very easy to vote. All voters may vote 
by mail or in person for nearly a month before election day, 
but Arizona imposes two restrictions that are claimed to be 
unlawful. First, in some counties, voters who choose to cast 
a ballot in person on election day must vote in their own 
precincts or else their ballots will not be counted. Second, 
mail-in ballots cannot be collected by anyone other than an 
Rhode Island, Thomas J. Donovan, Jr ., of Vermont, Mark R. Herring of 
Virginia, and Robert W. Ferguson of Washington; for the American Civil 
Liberties Union et al. by Davin M. Rosborough, Sophia Lin Lakin, 
T. Alora Thomas-Lundborg, Dale E. Ho, Cecillia D. Wang, and David D. 
Cole; for the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law by Antony 
L. Ryan, Helam Gebremariam, Myrna Pérez, Michael Li, and Wendy 
Weiser; for the Campaign Legal Center by Paul M. Smith, Danielle M. 
Lang, and Jonathan M. Diaz; for the Constitutional Accountability Center 
by Elizabeth B. Wydra, Brianne J. Gorod, and David H. Gans; for Empiri-
cal Elections Scholars by Maxwell V. Pritt; for Fair Fight Action, Inc., 
et al. by W. Scott Bales, Roopali H. Desai, D. Andrew Gaona, and Allegra 
J. Lawrence; for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights 
et al. by Debo P . Adegbile, Arpit K. Garg, LaShawn Warren, and Michael 
Zubrensky; for Mi Familia Vota et al. by Jason A. Leckerman; for the 
NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., by Sherrilyn Ifll, 
Janai S. Nelson, Samuel Spital, Leah C. Aden, and Mahogane D. Reed; 
for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People et al. 
by Kathleen R. Hartnett, Adam S. Gershenson, Damon Hewitt, Jon 
Greenbaum, Ezra D. Rosenberg, and Barrett J. Anderson; for the National 
Congress of American Indians by Jacqueline de León, John Echohawk, 
and Samantha Blencke Kelty; for the North Carolina, Memphis, Central 
Virginia, and Miami-Dade Chapters of the A. Philip Randolph Institute by 
Charles A. Rothfeld, Allison J. Riggs, and Jonathan C. Augustine; for 
State and Local Election Offcials by Zachary D. Tripp; and for Travis 
Crum by Mr. Crum, pro se , and Gregory Dubinsky. 
Briefs of amici curiae were fled in both cases for Casper Sleep Inc. 
et al. by Nathaniel B. Edmonds; for the Cato Institute by Ilya Shapiro; 
for the Liberty Justice Center by Daniel R. Suhr and Jeffrey M. Schwab; 
for the Navajo Nation by Judith M. Dworking, Paul Spruhan, and Patri-
cia A. Ferguson-Bohnee; for Senate Staffers et al. by Laura W. Brill; for 
Voting Rights Scholars by Justin Levitt, Allison A. Davis, and Chris 
Swift; for Elijah Haahr et al. by Frederick R. Yarger; and for Nicholas 
Stephanopoulos by Jenna A. Hudson and Mark A. Packman.

Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 655 
Opinion of the Court 
election offcial, a mail carrier, or a voter's family member, 
household member, or caregiver. After a trial, a District 
Court upheld these rules, as did a panel of the United States 
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. But an en banc 
court, by a divided vote, found them to be unlawful. It re-
lied on the rules' small disparate impacts on members of mi-
nority groups, as well as past discrimination dating back to 
the State's territorial days. And it overturned the District 
Court's fnding that the Arizona Legislature did not adopt 
the ballot-collection restriction for a discriminatory purpose. 
We now hold that the en banc court misunderstood and mis-
applied § 2 and that it exceeded its authority in rejecting the 
District Court's factual fnding on the issue of legislative 
intent. 
I 
A 
Congress enacted the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, 
79 Stat. 437, as amended, 52 U. S. C. § 10301 et seq., in an 
effort to achieve at long last what the Fifteenth Amendment 
had sought to bring about 95 years earlier: an end to the 
denial of the right to vote based on race. Ratifed in 1870, 
the Fifteenth Amendment provides in § 1 that “[t]he right of 
citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or 
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of 
race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Section 2 of 
the Amendment then grants Congress the “power to enforce 
[the Amendment] by appropriate legislation.” 
Despite the ratifcation of the Fifteenth Amendment, the 
right of African-Americans to vote was heavily suppressed 
for nearly a century. States employed a variety of notorious 
methods, including poll taxes, literacy tests, property qualif-
cations, “ `white primar[ies],' ” and “ `grandfather clause[s].' ” 
1 
1 H. R. Rep. No. 439, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 8, 11–13 (1965); S. Rep. No. 
162, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, pp. 4–5 (1965); see South Carolina v. 
Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 309–315 (1966). 
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656 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Opinion of the Court 
Challenges to some blatant efforts reached this Court and 
were held to violate the Fifteenth Amendment. See, e. g., 
Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347, 360–365 (1915) (grand-
father clause); Myers v. Anderson, 238 U. S. 368, 379– 
380 (1915) (same); Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268, 275–277 (1939) 
(registration scheme predicated on grandfather clause); 
Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 659–666 (1944) (white pri-
maries); Schnell v. Davis, 336 U. S. 933 (1949) (per curiam ), 
affrming 81 F. Supp. 872 (SD Ala. 1949) (test of constitutional 
knowledge); Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 347 (1960) 
(racial gerrymander). But as late as the mid-1960s, black 
registration and voting rates in some States were appallingly 
low. See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 313 
(1966). 
Invoking the power conferred by § 2 of the Fifteenth 
Amendment, see 383 U. S., at 308; City of Rome v. United 
States, 446 U. S. 156, 173 (1980), Congress enacted the Voting 
Rights Act (VRA) to address this entrenched problem. The 
Act and its amendments in the 1970s specifcally forbade 
some of the practices that had been used to suppress black 
voting. See §§ 4(a), (c), 79 Stat. 438–439; § 6, 84 Stat. 315; 
§ 102, 89 Stat. 400, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §§ 10303(a), (c), 
10501 (prohibiting the denial of the right to vote in any elec-
tion for failure to pass a test demonstrating literacy, educa-
tional achievement or knowledge of any particular subject, 
or good moral character); see also § 10, 79 Stat. 442, as 
amended, 52 U. S. C. § 10306 (declaring poll taxes unlawful); 
§ 11, 79 Stat. 443, as amended, 52 U. S. C. § 10307 (prohibiting 
intimidation and the refusal to allow or count votes). Sec-
tions 4 and 5 of the VRA imposed special requirements for 
States and subdivisions where violations of the right to vote 
had been severe. And § 2 addressed the denial or abridg-
ment of the right to vote in any part of the country. 
As originally enacted, § 2 closely tracked the language of 
the Amendment it was adopted to enforce. Section 2 stated 
simply that “[n]o voting qualifcation or prerequisite to vot-
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Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 657 
Opinion of the Court 
ing, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or 
applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or 
abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote 
on account of race or color.” 79 Stat. 437. 
Unlike other provisions of the VRA, § 2 attracted rela-
tively little attention during the congressional debates
2 and 
was “little-used” for more than a decade after its passage. 3 
But during the same period, this Court considered several 
cases involving “vote-dilution” claims asserted under the 
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 
See Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124 (1971); Burns v. Rich-
ardson, 384 U. S. 73 (1966); Fortson v. Dorsey, 379 U. S. 433 
(1965). In these and later vote-dilution cases, plaintiffs 
claimed that features of legislative districting plans, includ-
ing the confguration of legislative districts and the use of 
multi-member districts, diluted the ability of particular vot-
ers to affect the outcome of elections. 
One Fourteenth Amendment vote-dilution case, White v. 
Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973), came to have outsized impor-
tance in the development of our VRA case law. In White, 
the Court affrmed a District Court's judgment that two 
multi-member electoral districts were “being used invidi-
ously to cancel out or minimize the voting strength of racial 
groups.” Id., at 765. The Court explained what a vote-
dilution plaintiff must prove, and the words the Court chose 
would later assume great importance in VRA § 2 matters. 
According to White, a vote-dilution plaintiff had to show that 
“the political processes leading to nomination and election 
were not equally open to participation by the group in ques-
tion—that its members had less opportunity than did other 
residents in the district to participate in the political proc-
esses and to elect legislators of their choice.” Id., at 766 
2 See Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 60–61 (1980) (plurality opinion) 
(describing § 2's “sparse” legislative history). 
3 Boyd & Markman, The 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act: A 
Legislative History, 40 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1347, 1352–1353 (1983). 
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(emphasis added). The decision then recited many pieces of 
evidence the District Court had taken into account, and it 
found that this evidence suffced to prove the plaintiffs' 
claim. See id., at 766–769. The decision in White predated 
Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229 (1976), where the Court 
held that an equal-protection challenge to a facially neutral 
rule requires proof of discriminatory purpose or intent, id., 
at 238–245, and the White opinion said nothing one way or 
the other about purpose or intent. 
A few years later, the question whether a VRA § 2 claim 
required discriminatory purpose or intent came before this 
Court in Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980). The plurality 
opinion for four Justices concluded frst that § 2 of the VRA 
added nothing to the protections afforded by the Fifteenth 
Amendment. Id., at 60–61. The plurality then observed 
that prior decisions “ha[d] made clear that action by a State 
that is racially neutral on its face violates the Fifteenth 
Amendment only if motivated by a discriminatory purpose.” 
Id., at 62. The obvious result of those premises was that 
facially neutral voting practices violate § 2 only if motivated 
by a discriminatory purpose. The plurality read White 
as consistent with this requirement. Bolden, 446 U. S., at 
68–70. 
Shortly after Bolden was handed down, Congress 
amended § 2 of the VRA. The oft-cited Report of the Sen-
ate Judiciary Committee accompanying the 1982 Amendment 
stated that the amendment's purpose was to repudiate Bol-
den and establish a new vote-dilution test based on what the 
Court had said in White. See S. Rep. No. 97–417, pp. 2, 15– 
16, 27. The bill that was initially passed by the House of 
Representatives included what is now § 2(a). In place of the 
phrase “to deny or abridge the right . . . to vote on account 
of race or color,” the amendment substituted “in a manner 
which results in a denial or abridgement of the right . . . to 
vote on account of race or color.” H. R. Rep. No. 97–227, 
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p. 48 (1981) (emphasis added); H. R. 3112, 97th Cong., 1st 
Sess., § 2, p. 8 (introduced Oct. 7, 1981). 
The House bill “originally passed . . . under a loose under-
standing that § 2 would prohibit all discriminatory `effects' 
of voting practices, and that intent would be `irrelevant,' ” 
but “[t]his version met stiff resistance in the Senate.” Mis-
sissippi Republican Executive Committee v. Brooks, 469 
U. S. 1002, 1010 (1984) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (quoting 
H. R. Rep. No. 97–227, at 29). The House and Senate com-
promised, and the fnal product included language proposed 
by Senator Dole. 469 U. S., at 1010–1011; S. Rep. No. 97– 
417, at 3–4; 128 Cong. Rec. 14131–14133 (1982) (Sen. Dole 
describing his amendment). 
What is now § 2(b) was added, and that provision sets out 
what must be shown to prove a § 2 violation. It requires 
consideration of “the totality of circumstances” in each case 
and demands proof that “the political processes leading to 
nomination or election in the State or political subdivision 
are not equally open to participation” by members of a pro-
tected class “ in that its members have less opportunity than 
other members of the electorate to participate in the political 
process and to elect representatives of their choice.” 52 
U. S. C. § 10301(b) (emphasis added). Refecting the Senate 
Judiciary Committee's stated focus on the issue of vote dilu-
tion, this language was taken almost verbatim from White. 
This concentration on the contentious issue of vote dilution 
refected the results of the Senate Judiciary Committee's ex-
tensive survey of what it regarded as Fifteenth Amendment 
violations that called out for legislative redress. See, e. g., 
S. Rep. No. 97–417, at 6, 8, 23–24, 27, 29. That survey listed 
many examples of what the Committee took to be unconstitu-
tional vote dilution, but the survey identifed only three iso-
lated episodes involving the outright denial of the right to 
vote, and none of these concerned the equal application of a 
facially neutral rule specifying the time, place, or manner of 
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660 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
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voting. See id., at 30, and n. 119. 4 These sparse results 
were presumably good news. They likely showed that the 
VRA and other efforts had achieved a large measure of suc-
cess in combating the previously widespread practice of 
using such rules to hinder minority groups from voting. 
This Court frst construed the amended § 2 in Thornburg 
v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986)—another vote-dilution case. 
Justice Brennan's opinion for the Court set out three thresh-
old requirements for proving a § 2 vote-dilution claim, and, 
taking its cue from the Senate Report, provided a non-
exhaustive list of factors to be considered in determining 
whether § 2 had been violated. Id., at 44–45, 48–51, 80. 
“The essence of a § 2 claim,” the Court said, “is that a certain 
electoral law, practice, or structure interacts with social and 
historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportuni-
ties” of minority and non-minority voters to elect their pre-
ferred representatives. Id., at 47. 
In the years since Gingles, we have heard a steady stream 
of § 2 vote-dilution cases,
5 but until today, we have not con-
sidered how § 2 applies to generally applicable time, place, or 
manner voting rules. In recent years, however, such claims 
have proliferated in the lower courts.
6 
4 See Brown v. Post, 279 F. Supp. 60, 63 (WD La. 1968) (parish clerks 
discriminated with respect to absentee voting); United States v. Post, 297 
F. Supp. 46, 51 (WD La. 1969) (election offcial induced blacks to vote in 
accordance with outdated procedures and made votes ineffective); Toney 
v. White, 488 F. 2d 310, 312 (CA5 1973) (registrar discriminated in purging 
voting rolls). 
5 See Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S. 380 (1991) (multi-member district); 
Houston Lawyers' Assn. v. Attorney General of Tex., 501 U. S. 419 (1991) 
(at-large elections); Voinovich v. Quilter , 507 U. S. 146 (1993) (districting); 
Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25 (1993) (same); Holder v. Hall, 512 U. S. 874 
(1994) (single-member commission); Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U. S. 997 
(1994) (districting); Abrams v. Johnson, 521 U. S. 74 (1997) (same); League 
of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U. S. 399 (2006) (same); 
Abbott v. Perez, 585 U. S. 579 (2018) (same). 
6 See Brief for Sen. Ted Cruz et al. as Amici Curiae 22–24 (describing 
§ 2 challenges to laws regulating absentee voting, precinct voting, early 
voting periods, voter identifcation (ID), election observer zones, same-
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B 
The present dispute concerns two features of Arizona vot-
ing law, which generally makes it quite easy for residents to 
vote. All Arizonans may vote by mail for 27 days before an 
election using an “early ballot.” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 16– 
541 (2015), 16–542(C) (Cum. Supp. 2020). No special excuse 
is needed, §§ 16–541(A), 16–542(A), and any voter may ask 
to be sent an early ballot automatically in future elections, 
§ 16–544(A) (2015). In addition, during the 27 days before 
an election, Arizonans may vote in person at an early voting 
location in each county. See §§ 16–542(A), (E). And they 
may also vote in person on election day. 
Each county is free to conduct election-day voting either 
by using the traditional precinct model or by setting up “vot-
ing centers.” § 16–411(B)(4) (Cum. Supp. 2020). Voting 
centers are equipped to provide all voters in a county with 
the appropriate ballot for the precinct in which they are reg-
istered, and this allows voters in the county to use whichever 
vote center they prefer. See ibid. 
The regulations at issue in this suit govern precinct-based 
election-day voting and early mail-in voting. Voters who 
choose to vote in person on election day in a county that uses 
the precinct system must vote in their assigned precincts. 
See § 16–122 (2015); see also § 16–135. If a voter goes to the 
wrong polling place, poll workers are trained to direct the 
voter to the right location. Democratic Nat. Comm. v. 
Reagan, 329 F. Supp. 3d 824, 859 (Ariz. 2018); see Tr. 1559, 
1586 (Oct. 12, 2017); Tr. Exh. 370 (Pima County Elections 
Inspectors Handbook). If a voter fnds that his or her name 
does not appear on the register at what the voter believes is 
the right precinct, the voter ordinarily may cast a provi-
day registration, durational residency, and straight-ticket voting); Brief 
for State of Ohio et al. as Amici Curiae 23–25 (describing various 
§ 2 challenges); Brief for Liberty Justice Center as Amicus Curiae 1–3, 
7–11 (describing long-running § 2 challenges to Wisconsin voter ID 
law).

662 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Opinion of the Court 
sional ballot. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16–584 (Cum. Supp. 
2020). That ballot is later counted if the voter's address is 
determined to be within the precinct. See ibid. But if it 
turns out that the voter cast a ballot at the wrong precinct, 
that vote is not counted. See § 16–584(E); App. 37–41 (elec-
tion procedures manual); Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16–452(C) 
(misdemeanor to violate rules in election procedures manual). 
For those who choose to vote early by mail, Arizona has 
long required that “[o]nly the elector may be in possession of 
that elector's unvoted early ballot.” § 16–542(D). In 2016, 
the state legislature enacted House Bill 2023 (HB 2023), 
which makes it a crime for any person other than a postal 
worker, an elections offcial, or a voter's caregiver, family 
member, or household member to knowingly collect an early 
ballot—either before or after it has been completed. §§ 16– 
1005(H)–(I). 
In 2016, the Democratic National Committee and certain 
affliates brought this suit and named as defendants (among 
others) the Arizona attorney general and secretary of state 
in their offcial capacities. Among other things, the plain-
tiffs claimed that both the State's refusal to count ballots 
cast in the wrong precinct and its ballot-collection restriction 
“adversely and disparately affect Arizona's American Indian, 
Hispanic, and African American citizens,” in violation of § 2 
of the VRA. Democratic Nat. Comm. v. Hobbs, 948 F. 3d 
989, 998 (CA9 2020) (en banc). In addition, they alleged that 
the ballot-collection restriction was “enacted with discrimi-
natory intent” and thus violated both § 2 of the VRA and the 
Fifteenth Amendment. Ibid. 
After a 10-day bench trial, 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 832, 833– 
838, the District Court made extensive fndings of fact and 
rejected all the plaintiffs' claims, id., at 838–883. The court 
frst found that the out-of-precinct policy “has no meaning-
fully disparate impact on the opportunities of minority vot-
ers to elect” representatives of their choice. Id., at 872. 
The percentage of ballots invalidated under this policy was 
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very small (0.15% of all ballots cast in 2016) and decreasing, 
and while the percentages were slightly higher for members 
of minority groups, the court found that this disparity “does 
not result in minorities having unequal access to the political 
process.” Ibid. The court also found that the plaintiffs had 
not proved that the policy “causes minorities to show up to 
vote at the wrong precinct at rates higher than their non-
minority counterparts,” id., at 873, and the court noted that 
the plaintiffs had not even challenged “the manner in which 
Arizona counties allocate and assign polling places or Arizo-
na's requirement that voters re-register to vote when they 
move,” ibid. 
The District Court similarly found that the ballot-
collection restriction is unlikely to “cause a meaningful in-
equality in the electoral opportunities of minorities.” Id., at 
871. Rather, the court noted, the restriction applies equally 
to all voters and “does not impose burdens beyond those tra-
ditionally associated with voting.” Ibid. The court ob-
served that the plaintiffs had presented no records showing 
how many voters had previously relied on now-prohibited 
third-party ballot collectors and that the plaintiffs also had 
“provided no quantitative or statistical evidence” of the per-
centage of minority and non-minority voters in this group. 
Id., at 866. “[T]he vast majority” of early voters, the court 
found, “do not return their ballots with the assistance of a 
[now-prohibited] third-party collector,” id., at 845, and the 
evidence largely showed that those who had used such collec-
tors in the past “ha[d] done so out of convenience or personal 
preference, or because of circumstances that Arizona law ad-
equately accommodates in other ways,” id., at 847.
7 In addi-
tion, the court noted, none of the individual voters called 
by the plaintiffs had even claimed that the ballot-collection 
7 An ill or disabled voter may have a ballot delivered by a special elec-
tion board, and curbside voting at polling places is also allowed. 329 
F. Supp. 3d, at 848. 
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664 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
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restriction “would make it signifcantly more diffcult to 
vote.” Id., at 871. 
Finally, the court found that the ballot-collection law had 
not been enacted with discriminatory intent. “[T]he major-
ity of H.B. 2023's proponents,” the court found, “were sincere 
in their belief that ballot collection increased the risk of early 
voting fraud, and that H.B. 2023 was a necessary prophylac-
tic measure to bring early mail ballot security in line with 
in-person voting.” Id., at 879. The court added that “some 
individual legislators and proponents were motivated in part 
by partisan interests.” Id., at 882. But it distinguished be-
tween partisan and racial motives, while recognizing that “ra-
cially polarized voting can sometimes blur the lines.” Ibid. 
A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit affrmed, but an en 
banc court reversed. The en banc court frst concluded that 
both the out-of-precinct policy and the ballot-collection re-
striction imposed disparate burdens on minority voters be-
cause such voters were more likely to be adversely affected 
by those rules. 948 F. 3d, at 1014–1016, 1032–1033. Then, 
based on an assessment of the vote-dilution factors used in 
Gingles, the en banc majority found that these disparate bur-
dens were “in part caused by or linked to `social and histori-
cal conditions' ” that produce inequality. 948 F. 3d, at 1032 
(quoting Gingles, 478 U. S., at 47); see 948 F. 3d, at 1037. 
Among other things, the court relied on racial discrimination 
dating back to Arizona's territorial days, current socioeco-
nomic disparities, racially polarized voting, and racial cam-
paign appeals. See id., at 1016–1032, 1033–1037. 
The en banc majority also held that the District Court had 
committed clear error in fnding that the ballot-collection law 
was not enacted with discriminatory intent. The en banc 
court did not claim that a majority of legislators had voted 
for the law for a discriminatory purpose, but the court held 
that these lawmakers “were used as `cat's paws' ” by others. 
Id., at 1041. 
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One judge in the majority declined to join the court's hold-
ing on discriminatory intent, and four others dissented 
across the board. A petition for a writ of certiorari was 
fled by the Arizona attorney general on his own behalf and 
on behalf of the State, which had intervened below; another 
petition was fled by the Arizona Republican Party and other 
private parties who also had intervened. We granted the 
petitions and agreed to review both the Ninth Circuit's un-
derstanding and application of VRA § 2 and its holding on 
discriminatory intent. 591 U. S. ––– (2020). 
II 
We begin with two preliminary matters. Secretary of 
State Hobbs contends that no petitioner has Article III 
standing to appeal the decision below as to the out-of-
precinct policy, but we reject that argument. All that is 
needed to entertain an appeal of that issue is one party with 
standing, see Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and 
Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 591 U. S. 657, 674, n. 6 (2020), 
and we are satisfed that Attorney General Brnovich fts the 
bill. The State of Arizona intervened below, see App. 834; 
there is “[n]o doubt” as an Article III matter that “the State 
itself c[an] press this appeal,” Virginia House of Delegates 
v. Bethune-Hill, 587 U. S. –––, ––– (2019); and the attorney 
general is authorized to represent the State in any action in 
federal court, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 41–193(A)(3) (2021); see 
Arizonans for Offcial English v. Arizona, 520 U. S. 43, 51, 
n. 4 (1997). 
Second, we think it prudent to make clear at the beginning 
that we decline in these cases to announce a test to govern 
all VRA § 2 claims involving rules, like those at issue here, 
that specify the time, place, or manner for casting ballots. 
Each of the parties advocated a different test, as did many 
amici and the courts below. In a brief fled in December in 
support of petitioners, the Department of Justice proposed 
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666 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Opinion of the Court 
one such test but later disavowed the analysis in that brief. 8 
The Department informed us, however, that it did not dis-
agree with its prior conclusion that the two provisions of 
Arizona law at issue in these cases do not violate § 2 of the 
Voting Rights Act.
9 All told, no fewer than 10 tests have 
been proposed. But as this is our frst foray into the area, 
we think it suffcient for present purposes to identify certain 
guideposts that lead us to our decision in these cases. 
III 
A 
We start with the text of VRA § 2. It now provides: 
“(a) No voting qualifcation or prerequisite to voting 
or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or 
applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner 
which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of 
any citizen of the United States to vote on account of 
race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set 
forth in section 10303(f)(2) of this title, as provided in 
subsection (b). 
“(b) A violation of subsection (a) is established if, 
based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that 
the political processes leading to nomination or election 
in the State or political subdivision are not equally open 
to participation by members of a class of citizens pro-
tected by subsection (a) in that its members have less 
opportunity than other members of the electorate to 
participate in the political process and to elect repre-
sentatives of their choice. The extent to which mem-
bers of a protected class have been elected to offce in 
the State or political subdivision is one circumstance 
which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this 
8 Letter from E. Kneedler, Deputy Solicitor General, to S. Harris, Clerk 
of Court (Feb. 16, 2021). 
9 Ibid. 
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section establishes a right to have members of a pro-
tected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion 
in the population.” 52 U. S. C. § 10301. 
In Gingles, our seminal § 2 vote-dilution case, the Court 
quoted the text of amended § 2 and then jumped right to the 
Senate Judiciary Committee Report, which focused on the 
issue of vote dilution. 478 U. S., at 36–37, 43, and n. 7. Our 
many subsequent vote-dilution cases have largely followed 
the path that Gingles charted. But because this is our frst 
§ 2 time, place, or manner case, a fresh look at the statutory 
text is appropriate. Today, our statutory interpretation 
cases almost always start with a careful consideration of the 
text, and there is no reason to do otherwise here. 
B 
Section 2(a), as noted, omits the phrase “to deny or abridge 
the right . . . to vote on account of race or color,” which the 
Bolden plurality had interpreted to require proof of discrimi-
natory intent. In place of that language, § 2(a) substitutes 
the phrase “in a manner which results in a denial or abridge-
ment of the right . . . to vote on account of race or color.” 
(Emphasis added.) We need not decide what this text would 
mean if it stood alone because § 2(b), which was added to win 
Senate approval, explains what must be shown to establish 
a § 2 violation. Section 2(b) states that § 2 is violated only 
where “the political processes leading to nomination or elec-
tion” are not “equally open to participation” by members of 
the relevant protected group “ in that its members have less 
opportunity than other members of the electorate to partici-
pate in the political process and to elect representatives of 
their choice.” (Emphasis added.) 
The key requirement is that the political processes leading 
to nomination and election (here, the process of voting) must 
be “equally open” to minority and non-minority groups alike, 
and the most relevant defnition of the term “open,” as used 
in § 2(b), is “without restrictions as to who may participate,” 
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Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1008 (J. 
Stein ed. 1966), or “requiring no special status, identifcation, 
or permit for entry or participation,” Webster's Third New 
International Dictionary 1579 (1976). 
What § 2(b) means by voting that is not “equally open” is 
further explained by this language: “in that its members 
have less opportunity than other members of the electorate 
to participate in the political process and to elect representa-
tives of their choice.” The phrase “in that” is “used to spec-
ify the respect in which a statement is true.” 
10 Thus, equal 
openness and equal opportunity are not separate require-
ments. Instead, equal opportunity helps to explain the 
meaning of equal openness. And the term “opportunity” 
means, among other things, “a combination of circumstances, 
time, and place suitable or favorable for a particular activity 
or action.” Id., at 1583; see also Random House Dictionary 
of the English Language, at 1010 (“an appropriate or favor-
able time or occasion,” “a situation or condition favorable for 
attainment of a goal”). 
Putting these terms together, it appears that the core of 
§ 2(b) is the requirement that voting be “equally open.” The 
statute's reference to equal “opportunity” may stretch that 
concept to some degree to include consideration of a person's 
ability to use the means that are equally open. But equal 
openness remains the touchstone. 
C 
One other important feature of § 2(b) stands out. The pro-
vision requires consideration of “the totality of circum-
stances.” Thus, any circumstance that has a logical bearing 
on whether voting is “equally open” and affords equal “op-
10 The New Oxford American Dictionary 851 (2d ed. 2005); see 7 Oxford 
English Dictionary 763 (2d ed. 1989) (“in presence, view, or consequence 
of the fact that”); Webster's New International Dictionary 1253 (2d ed. 
1934) (“Because; for the reason that”). 
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portunity” may be considered. We will not attempt to com-
pile an exhaustive list, but several important circumstances 
should be mentioned. 
1 
1. First, the size of the burden imposed by a challenged 
voting rule is highly relevant. The concepts of “open[ness]” 
and “opportunity” connote the absence of obstacles and bur-
dens that block or seriously hinder voting, and therefore the 
size of the burden imposed by a voting rule is important. 
After all, every voting rule imposes a burden of some sort. 
Voting takes time and, for almost everyone, some travel, 
even if only to a nearby mailbox. Casting a vote, whether 
by following the directions for using a voting machine or 
completing a paper ballot, requires compliance with certain 
rules. But because voting necessarily requires some effort 
and compliance with some rules, the concept of a voting sys-
tem that is “equally open” and that furnishes an equal 
“opportunity” to cast a ballot must tolerate the “usual bur-
dens of voting.” Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 
553 U. S. 181, 198 (2008) (opinion of Stevens, J.). Mere incon-
venience cannot be enough to demonstrate a violation of § 2.
11 
2. For similar reasons, the degree to which a voting rule 
departs from what was standard practice when § 2 was 
11 There is a difference between openness and opportunity, on the one 
hand, and the absence of inconvenience, on the other. For example, sup-
pose that an exhibit at a museum in a particular city is open to everyone 
free of charge every day of the week for several months. Some residents 
of the city who have the opportunity to view the exhibit may fnd it incon-
venient to do so for many reasons—the problem of fnding parking, dislike 
of public transportation, anticipation that the exhibit will be crowded, a 
plethora of weekend chores and obligations, etc. Or, to take another ex-
ample, a college course may be open to all students and all may have the 
opportunity to enroll, but some students may fnd it inconvenient to take 
the class for a variety of reasons. For example, classes may occur too 
early in the morning or on Friday afternoon; too much reading may be 
assigned; the professor may have a reputation as a hard grader; etc. 
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670 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
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amended in 1982 is a relevant consideration. Because every 
voting rule imposes a burden of some sort, it is useful to 
have benchmarks with which the burdens imposed by a chal-
lenged rule can be compared. The burdens associated with 
the rules in widespread use when § 2 was adopted are there-
fore useful in gauging whether the burdens imposed by a 
challenged rule are suffcient to prevent voting from being 
equally “open” or furnishing an equal “opportunity” to vote 
in the sense meant by § 2. Therefore, it is relevant that in 
1982 States typically required nearly all voters to cast their 
ballots in person on election day and allowed only narrow 
and tightly defned categories of voters to cast absentee 
ballots. See, e. g., 17 N. Y . Elec. Law Ann. § 8–100 et seq. 
(West 1978), § 8–300 et seq. (in-person voting), § 8–400 et seq. 
(limited-excuse absentee voting); Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 25, 
§ 3045 et seq. (Purdon 1963) (in-person voting), § 3149.1 et seq. 
(limited-excuse absentee voting); see § 3146.1 (Purdon Cum. 
Supp. 1993) (same); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3501.02 et seq. 
(Lexis 1972) (in-person voting), § 3509.01 et seq. (limited-
excuse absentee voting); see § 3509.02 (Lexis Supp. 1986) 
(same); Fla. Stat. Ann. § 101.011 et seq. (1973) (in-person vot-
ing), § 101.62 et seq. (limited-excuse absentee voting); see 
§ 97.063 (1982) (same); Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 46, § 17–1 et seq. 
(West 1977) (in-person voting), § 19–1 et seq. (limited-excuse 
absentee voting); D. C. Code §§ 1–1109, 1–1110 (1973) (in-
person voting and limited-excuse absentee voting); see 
§ 1–1313 (1981) (same). As of January 1980, only three 
States permitted no-excuse absentee voting. See Gronke & 
Galanes-Rosenbaum, America Votes! 261, 267–269 (B. Grif-
fth ed. 2008); see also J. Sargent et al., Congressional Re-
search Service, The Growth of Early and Nonprecinct Place 
Balloting, in Election Laws of the Fifty States and the Dis-
trict of Columbia (rev. 1976). We doubt that Congress in-
tended to uproot facially neutral time, place, and manner reg-
ulations that have a long pedigree or are in widespread use 
in the United States. We have no need to decide whether 
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adherence to, or a return to, a 1982 framework is neces-
sarily lawful under § 2, but the degree to which a chal-
lenged rule has a long pedigree or is in widespread use in 
the United States is a circumstance that must be taken into 
account. 
3. The size of any disparities in a rule's impact on mem-
bers of different racial or ethnic groups is also an important 
factor to consider. Small disparities are less likely than 
large ones to indicate that a system is not equally open. To 
the extent that minority and non-minority groups differ with 
respect to employment, wealth, and education, even neutral 
regulations, no matter how crafted, may well result in some 
predictable disparities in rates of voting and noncompliance 
with voting rules. But the mere fact there is some disparity 
in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not 
equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal op-
portunity to vote. The size of any disparity matters. And 
in assessing the size of any disparity, a meaningful compari-
son is essential. What are at bottom very small differences 
should not be artifcially magnifed. E. g., Frank v. Walker, 
768 F. 3d 744, 752, n. 3 (CA7 2014). 
4. Next, courts must consider the opportunities provided 
by a State's entire system of voting when assessing the bur-
den imposed by a challenged provision. This follows from 
§ 2(b)'s reference to the collective concept of a State's “politi-
cal processes” and its “political process” as a whole. Thus, 
where a State provides multiple ways to vote, any burden 
imposed on voters who choose one of the available options 
cannot be evaluated without also taking into account the 
other available means. 
5. Finally, the strength of the state interests served by a 
challenged voting rule is also an important factor that must 
be taken into account. As noted, every voting rule imposes 
a burden of some sort, and therefore, in determining “based 
on the totality of circumstances” whether a rule goes too far, 
it is important to consider the reason for the rule. Rules 
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that are supported by strong state interests are less likely 
to violate § 2. 
One strong and entirely legitimate state interest is the 
prevention of fraud. Fraud can affect the outcome of a close 
election, and fraudulent votes dilute the right of citizens to 
cast ballots that carry appropriate weight. Fraud can also 
undermine public confdence in the fairness of elections and 
the perceived legitimacy of the announced outcome. 
Ensuring that every vote is cast freely, without intimida-
tion or undue infuence, is also a valid and important state 
interest. This interest helped to spur the adoption of what 
soon became standard practice in this country and in other 
democratic nations the world round: the use of private voting 
booths. See Burson v. Freeman , 504 U. S. 191, 202–205 
(1992) (plurality opinion). 
2 
While the factors set out above are important, others con-
sidered by some lower courts are less helpful in a case like 
the ones at hand. First, it is important to keep in mind that 
the Gingles or “Senate” factors grew out of and were de-
signed for use in vote-dilution cases. Some of those factors 
are plainly inapplicable in a case involving a challenge to a 
facially neutral time, place, or manner voting rule. Factors 
three and four concern districting and election procedures 
like “majority vote requirements,” “anti-single shot provi-
sions,” 
12 and a “candidate slating process.” 13 See Gingles, 
12 Where voters are allowed to vote for multiple candidates in a race for 
multiple seats, single-shot voting is the practice of voting for only one 
candidate. “ ` “Single-shot voting enables a minority group to win some 
at-large seats if it concentrates its vote behind a limited number of candi-
dates and if the vote of the majority is divided among a number of candi-
dates.” ' ” Gingles, 478 U. S., at 38–39, n. 5 (quoting City of Rome v. 
United States, 446 U. S. 156, 184, n. 19 (1980)); see also United States 
Commission on Civil Rights, The Voting Rights Act: Ten Years After 206– 
207 (1975). 
13 Slating has been described as “a process in which some infuential non-
governmental organization selects and endorses a group or `slate' of

Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 673 
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478 U. S., at 37 (internal quotation marks omitted). Factors 
two, six, and seven (which concern racially polarized voting, 
racially tinged campaign appeals, and the election of 
minority-group candidates), ibid., have a bearing on whether 
a districting plan affects the opportunity of minority voters 
to elect their candidates of choice. But in cases involving 
neutral time, place, and manner rules, the only relevance of 
these and the remaining factors is to show that minority 
group members suffered discrimination in the past (factor 
one) and that effects of that discrimination persist (factor 
fve). Id., at 36–37. We do not suggest that these factors 
should be disregarded. After all, § 2(b) requires consider-
ation of “the totality of circumstances.” But their relevance 
is much less direct. 
We also do not fnd the disparate-impact model employed 
in Title VII and Fair Housing Act cases useful here. The 
text of the relevant provisions of Title VII and the Fair 
Housing Act differ from that of VRA § 2, and it is not obvious 
why Congress would conform rules regulating voting to 
those regulating employment and housing. For example, we 
think it inappropriate to read § 2 to impose a strict “necessity 
requirement” that would force States to demonstrate that 
their legitimate interests can be accomplished only by means 
of the voting regulations in question. Stephanopoulos, Dis-
parate Impact, Unifed Law, 128 Yale L. J. 1566, 1617–1619 
(2019) (advocating such a requirement). Demanding such a 
tight ft would have the effect of invalidating a great many 
neutral voting regulations with long pedigrees that are rea-
sonable means of pursuing legitimate interests. It would 
also transfer much of the authority to regulate election pro-
candidates, rendering the election little more than a stamp of approval for 
the candidates selected.” Westwego Citizens for Better Govt. v. West-
wego, 946 F. 2d 1109, 1116, n. 5 (CA5 1991). Exclusion from such a system 
can make it diffcult for minority groups to elect their preferred candi-
dates. See, e. g., White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 766–767, and n. 11 (1973) 
(describing one example). 
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cedures from the States to the federal courts. For those 
reasons, the Title VII and Fair Housing Act models are un-
helpful in § 2 cases. 
D 
The interpretation set out above follows directly from 
what § 2 commands: consideration of “the totality of circum-
stances” that have a bearing on whether a State makes vot-
ing “equally open” to all and gives everyone an equal “oppor-
tunity” to vote. The dissent, by contrast, would rewrite the 
text of § 2 and make it turn almost entirely on just one cir-
cumstance—disparate impact. 
That is a radical project, and the dissent strains mightily 
to obscure its objective. To that end, it spends 20 pages 
discussing matters that have little bearing on the questions 
before us. The dissent provides historical background that 
all Americans should remember, see post, at 692–696 (opinion 
of Kagan, J.), but that background does not tell us how to 
decide these cases. The dissent quarrels with the decision 
in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U. S. 529 (2013), see post, at 
696–698, which concerned §§ 4 and 5 of the VRA, not § 2. It 
discusses all sorts of voting rules that are not at issue here. 
See post, at 698–701. And it dwells on points of law that 
nobody disputes: that § 2 applies to a broad range of voting 
rules, practices, and procedures; that an “abridgement” of 
the right to vote under § 2 does not require outright denial 
of the right; that § 2 does not demand proof of discriminatory 
purpose; and that a “facially neutral” law or practice may 
violate that provision. See post, at 701–709. 
Only after this extended effort at misdirection is the dis-
sent's aim fnally unveiled: to undo as much as possible the 
compromise that was reached between the House and Senate 
when § 2 was amended in 1982. Recall that the version origi-
nally passed by the House did not contain § 2(b) and was 
thought to prohibit any voting practice that had “discrimina-
tory effects,” loosely defned. See supra, at 658–659. That 
is the freewheeling disparate-impact regime the dissent 
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wants to impose on the States. But the version enacted into 
law includes § 2(b), and that subsection directs us to consider 
“the totality of circumstances,” not, as the dissent would 
have it, the totality of just one circumstance.
14 There is 
nothing to the dissent's charge that we are departing 
from the statutory text by identifying some of those 
considerations. 
We have listed fve relevant circumstances and have ex-
plained why they all stem from the statutory text and have 
a bearing on the determination that § 2 requires. The dis-
sent does not mention a single additional consideration, and 
it does its best to push aside all but one of the circumstances 
we discuss. It entirely rejects three of them: the size of the 
burden imposed by a challenged rule, see post, at 711–712, 
the landscape of voting rules both in 1982 and in the present, 
post, at 713–714,
15 and the availability of other ways to vote, 
14 The dissent erroneously claims that the Senate-House compromise was 
only about proportional representation and not about “the equal-access 
right” at issue in the present cases. Post, at 708, n. 6. The text of the 
bill initially passed by the House had no equal-access right. See H. R. 
Rep. No. 97–227, p. 48 (1981); H. R. 3112, 97th Cong., 1st Sess., § 2, p. 8 
(introduced Oct. 7, 1981). Section 2(b) was the Senate's creation, and that 
provision is what directed courts to look beyond mere “results” to whether 
a State's “political processes” are “equally open,” considering “the totality 
of circumstances.” See Mississippi Republican Executive Committee v. 
Brooks, 469 U. S. 1002, 1010 (1984) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“The com-
promise bill retained the `results' language but also incorporated language 
directly from this Court's opinion in White v. Regester”). And while the 
proviso on proportional representation may not apply as directly in this 
suit, it is still a signal that § 2 imposes something other than a pure 
disparate-impact regime. 
15 The dissent objects to consideration of the 1982 landscape because 
even rules that were prevalent at that time are invalid under § 2 if they, 
well, violate § 2. Post, at 713. We of course agree with that tautology. 
But the question is what it means to provide equal opportunity, and given 
that every voting rule imposes some amount of burden, rules that were 
and are commonplace are useful comparators when considering the totality 
of circumstances. Unlike the dissent, Congress did not set its sights 
on every facially neutral time, place, or manner voting rule in exist-

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post, at 712–713. Unable to bring itself to completely reject 
consideration of the state interests that a challenged rule 
serves, the dissent tries to diminish the signifcance of this 
circumstance as much as possible. See post, at 715–718. 
According to the dissent, an interest served by a voting rule, 
no matter how compelling, cannot support the rule unless a 
State can prove to the satisfaction of the courts that this 
interest could not be served by any other means. Post, at 
706–707, 715–718. Such a requirement has no footing in the 
text of § 2 or our precedent construing it.
16 
ence. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 97–417, at 10, n. 22 (describing what the Sen-
ate Judiciary Committee viewed as “blatant direct impediments to 
voting”). 
16 For support, the dissent offers a baseless reading of one of our vote-
dilution decisions. In Houston Lawyers' Assn., 501 U. S. 419, we consid-
ered a § 2 challenge to an electoral scheme wherein all trial judges in a 
judicial district were elected on a district-wide basis. Id., at 422. The 
State asserted that it had a strong interest in district-wide judicial elec-
tions on the theory that they make every individual judge at least partly 
accountable to minority voters in the jurisdiction. Id., at 424, 426. That 
unique interest, the State contended, should have “automatically” ex-
empted the electoral scheme from § 2 scrutiny altogether. Id., at 426. 
We disagreed, holding that the State's interest was instead “a legitimate 
factor to be considered by courts among the `totality of circumstances' in 
determining whether a § 2 violation has occurred.” Ibid. To illustrate 
why an “automati[c]” exemption from § 2's coverage was inappropriate, 
the Court hypothesized a case involving an “uncouth” district shaped like 
the one in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 340 (1960), for which an 
inquiry under § 2 “would at least arguably be required.” 501 U. S., at 
427. The Court then wrote the language upon which the dissent seizes: 
“Placing elections for single-member offces entirely beyond the scope of 
coverage of § 2 would preclude such an inquiry, even if the State's interest 
in maintaining the `uncouth' electoral system was trivial or illusory and 
even if any resulting impairment of a minority group's voting strength 
could be remedied without signifcantly impairing the State's interest in 
electing judges on a district-wide basis.” Id., at 427–428. 
That reductio ad absurdum, used to demonstrate only why an automatic 
exemption from § 2 scrutiny was inappropriate, did not announce an “in-
quiry” at all—much less the least-burdensome-means requirement the dis-
sent would have us smuggle in from materially different statutory re-

Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 677 
Opinion of the Court 
That requirement also would have the potential to invali-
date just about any voting rule a State adopts. Take the 
example of a State's interest in preventing voting fraud. 
Even if a State could point to a history of serious voting 
fraud within its own borders, the dissent would apparently 
strike down a rule designed to prevent fraud unless the State 
could demonstrate an inability to combat voting fraud in any 
other way, such as by hiring more investigators and prosecu-
tors, prioritizing voting fraud investigations, and heighten-
ing criminal penalties. Nothing about equal openness and 
equal opportunity dictates such a high bar for States to pur-
sue their legitimate interests. 
With all other circumstances swept away, all that remains 
in the dissent's approach is the size of any disparity in a 
rule's impact on members of protected groups. As we have 
noted, differences in employment, wealth, and education may 
make it virtually impossible for a State to devise rules that 
do not have some disparate impact. But under the dissent's 
interpretation of § 2, any “statistically signifcant” dispar-
ity—wherever that is in the statute—may be enough to take 
down even facially neutral voting rules with long pedigrees 
that reasonably pursue important state interests. Post, at 
704, n. 4, 708–709, 721.
17 
gimes. Post, at 707, n. 5, 715. Perhaps that is why no one —not the 
parties, not the United States, not the 36 other amici, not the courts 
below, and certainly not this Court in subsequent decisions—has advanced 
the dissent's surprising reading of a single phrase in Houston Lawyers 
Assn. The dissent apparently thinks that in 1991 we silently abrogated 
the principle that the nature of a State's interest is but one of many factors 
to consider, see Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 44–45 (1986), and that 
our subsequent cases have erred by failing simply to ask whether a less 
burdensome measure would suffce. Who knew? 
17 We do not think § 2 is so procrustean. Statistical signifcance may 
provide “evidence that something besides random error is at work,” Fed-
eral Judicial Center, Reference Manual on Scientifc Evidence 252 (3d ed. 
2011), but it does not necessarily determine causes, and as the dissent 
acknowledges, post, at 704, n. 4, it is not the be-all and end-all of disparate-
impact analysis. See Federal Judicial Center, Reference Manual, at 252 
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Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act provides vital protec-
tion against discriminatory voting rules, and no one suggests 
that discrimination in voting has been extirpated or that the 
threat has been eliminated. But § 2 does not deprive the 
States of their authority to establish non-discriminatory vot-
ing rules, and that is precisely what the dissent's radical in-
terpretation would mean in practice. The dissent is correct 
that the Voting Rights Act exemplifes our country's commit-
ment to democracy, but there is nothing democratic about 
the dissent's attempt to bring about a wholesale transfer of 
the authority to set voting rules from the States to the fed-
eral courts. 
IV 
A 
In light of the principles set out above, neither Arizona's 
out-of-precinct rule nor its ballot-collection law violates § 2 
of the VRA. Arizona's out-of-precinct rule enforces the re-
quirement that voters who choose to vote in person on elec-
tion day must do so in their assigned precincts. Having to 
identify one's own polling place and then travel there to vote 
does not exceed the “usual burdens of voting.” Crawford, 
553 U. S., at 198 (opinion of Stevens, J.) (noting the same 
about making a trip to the department of motor vehicles). 
On the contrary, these tasks are quintessential examples of 
the usual burdens of voting. 
Not only are these unremarkable burdens, but the District 
Court's uncontested fndings show that the State made ex-
(“[S]ignifcant differences . . . are not evidence that [what is at work] is 
legally or practically important. Statisticians distinguish between statis-
tical and practical signifcance to make the point. When practical signif-
cance is lacking—when the size of a disparity is negligible—there is no 
reason to worry about statistical signifcance”); ibid., n. 102 (citing authori-
ties). Moreover, whatever might be “standard” in other contexts, post, at 
704, n. 4, we have explained that VRA § 2's focus on equal “open[ness]” 
and equal “opportunity” does not impose a standard disparate-impact 
regime. 
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tensive efforts to reduce their impact on the number of valid 
votes ultimately cast. The State makes accurate precinct 
information available to all voters. When precincts or poll-
ing places are altered between elections, each registered 
voter is sent a notice showing the voter's new polling place. 
329 F. Supp. 3d, at 859. Arizona law also mandates that 
election offcials send a sample ballot to each household that 
includes a registered voter who has not opted to be placed 
on the permanent early voter list, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16– 
510(C) (2015), and this mailing also identifes the voter's 
proper polling location, 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 859. In addition, 
the Arizona secretary of state's offce sends voters pamphlets 
that include information (in both English and Spanish) about 
how to identify their assigned precinct. Ibid. 
Polling place information is also made available by other 
means. The secretary of state's offce operates websites 
that provide voter-specifc polling place information and 
allow voters to make inquiries to the secretary's staff. Ibid. 
Arizona's two most populous counties, Maricopa and Pima, 
provide online polling place locators with information avail-
able in English and Spanish. Ibid. Other groups offer sim-
ilar online tools. Ibid. Voters may also identify their as-
signed polling place by calling the offce of their respective 
county recorder. Ibid. And on election day, poll workers 
in at least some counties are trained to redirect voters who 
arrive at the wrong precinct. Ibid., see Tr. 1559, 1586; Tr. 
Exh. 370 (Pima County Elections Inspectors Handbook). 
The burdens of identifying and traveling to one's assigned 
precinct are also modest when considering Arizona's “politi-
cal processes” as a whole. The Court of Appeals noted that 
Arizona leads other States in the rate of votes rejected on 
the ground that they were cast in the wrong precinct, and 
the court attributed this to frequent changes in polling loca-
tions, confusing placement of polling places, and high levels 
of residential mobility. 948 F. 3d, at 1000–1004. But even 
if it is marginally harder for Arizona voters to fnd their 
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assigned polling places, the State offers other easy ways to 
vote. Any voter can request an early ballot without ex-
cuse. Any voter can ask to be placed on the permanent 
early voter list so that an early ballot will be mailed auto-
matically. Voters may drop off their early ballots at any 
polling place, even one to which they are not assigned. And 
for nearly a month before election day, any voter can vote in 
person at an early voting location in his or her county. The 
availability of those options likely explains why out-of-
precinct votes on election day make up such a small and ap-
parently diminishing portion of overall ballots cast—0.47% 
of all ballots in the 2012 general election and just 0.15% in 
2016. 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 872. 
Next, the racial disparity in burdens allegedly caused by 
the out-of-precinct policy is small in absolute terms. The 
District Court accepted the plaintiffs' evidence that, of the 
Arizona counties that reported out-of-precinct ballots in the 
2016 general election, a little over 1% of Hispanic voters, 
1% of African-American voters, and 1% of Native American 
voters who voted on election day cast an out-of-precinct bal-
lot. Ibid. For non-minority voters, the rate was around 
0.5%. Ibid. (citing Tr. Exh. 97, at 3, 20–21). A policy that 
appears to work for 98% or more of voters to whom it 
applies—minority and non-minority alike—is unlikely to 
render a system unequally open. 
The Court of Appeals attempted to paint a different pic-
ture, but its use of statistics was highly misleading for rea-
sons that were well explained by Judge Easterbrook in a § 2 
case involving voter IDs. As he put it, a distorted picture 
can be created by dividing one percentage by another. 
Frank, 768 F. 3d, at 752, n. 3. He gave this example: “If 
99.9% of whites had photo IDs, and 99.7% of blacks did,” it 
could be said that “ `blacks are three times as likely as whites 
to lack qualifying ID' (0.3 ÷ 0.1 = 3), but such a statement 
would mask the fact that the populations were effectively 
identical.” Ibid. 
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That is exactly what the en banc Ninth Circuit did here. 
The District Court found that among the counties that re-
ported out-of-precinct ballots in the 2016 general election, 
roughly 99% of Hispanic voters, 99% of African-American 
voters, and 99% of Native American voters who voted on 
election day cast their ballots in the right precinct, while 
roughly 99.5% of non-minority voters did so. 329 F. Supp. 
3d, at 872. Based on these statistics, the en banc Ninth Cir-
cuit concluded that “minority voters in Arizona cast [out-of-
precinct] ballots at twice the rate of white voters.” 948 
F. 3d, at 1014; see id., at 1004–1005. This is precisely the 
sort of statistical manipulation that Judge Easterbrook 
rightly criticized, namely, 1.0 ÷ 0.5 = 2. Properly under-
stood, the statistics show only a small disparity that provides 
little support for concluding that Arizona's political processes 
are not equally open. 
The Court of Appeals' decision also failed to give appro-
priate weight to the state interests that the out-of-precinct 
rule serves. Not counting out-of-precinct votes induces 
compliance with the requirement that Arizonans who choose 
to vote in-person on election day do so at their assigned poll-
ing places. And as the District Court recognized, precinct-
based voting furthers important state interests. It helps to 
distribute voters more evenly among polling places and thus 
reduces wait times. It can put polling places closer to voter 
residences than would a more centralized voting-center 
model. In addition, precinct-based voting helps to ensure 
that each voter receives a ballot that lists only the candidates 
and public questions on which he or she can vote, and this 
orderly administration tends to decrease voter confusion and 
increase voter confdence in elections. See 329 F. Supp. 3d, 
at 878. It is also signifcant that precinct-based voting has 
a long pedigree in the United States. See 948 F. 3d, at 1062– 
1063 (Bybee, J., dissenting) (citing J. Harris, Election Admin-
istration in the United States 206–207 (1934)). And the pol-
icy of not counting out-of-precinct ballots is widespread. 
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See 948 F. 3d, at 1072–1088 (collecting and categorizing 
state laws). 
The Court of Appeals discounted the State's interests 
because, in its view, there was no evidence that a less restric-
tive alternative would threaten the integrity of precinct-
based voting. The court thought the State had no good rea-
son for not counting an out-of-precinct voter's choices with 
respect to the candidates and issues also on the ballot in the 
voter's proper precinct. See id., at 1030–1031. We dis-
agree with this reasoning. 
Section 2 does not require a State to show that its chosen 
policy is absolutely necessary or that a less restrictive means 
would not adequately serve the State's objectives. And the 
Court of Appeals' preferred alternative would have obvious 
disadvantages. Partially counting out-of-precinct ballots 
would complicate the process of tabulation and could lead to 
disputes and delay. In addition, as one of the en banc dis-
senters noted, it would tend to encourage voters who are 
primarily interested in only national or state-wide elections 
to vote in whichever place is most convenient even if they 
know that it is not their assigned polling place. See id., at 
1065–1066 (opinion of Bybee, J.). 
In light of the modest burdens allegedly imposed by Arizo-
na's out-of-precinct policy, the small size of its disparate im-
pact, and the State's justifcations, we conclude the rule does 
not violate § 2 of the VRA.
18 
18 In arguing that Arizona's out-of-precinct policy violates § 2, the dissent 
focuses on the State's decisions about the siting of polling places and the 
frequency with which voting precincts are changed. See post, at 722 
(“Much of the story has to do with the siting and shifting of polling 
places”). But the plaintiffs did not challenge those practices. See 329 
F. Supp. 3d, at 873 (“Plaintiffs . . . do not challenge the manner in which 
Arizona counties allocate and assign polling places or Arizona's require-
ment that voters re-register to vote when they move”). The dissent is 
thus left with the unenviable task of explaining how something like a 0.5% 
disparity in discarded ballots between minority and non-minority groups 
suffces to render Arizona's political processes not equally open to partici-
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Opinion of the Court 
B 
HB 2023 likewise passes muster under the results test of 
§ 2. Arizonans who receive early ballots can submit them 
by going to a mailbox, a post offce, an early ballot drop box, 
or an authorized election offcial's offce within the 27-day 
early voting period. They can also drop off their ballots at 
any polling place or voting center on election day, and in 
order to do so, they can skip the line of voters waiting to 
vote in person. 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 839 (citing ECF Doc. 
361, ¶57). Making any of these trips—much like traveling 
to an assigned polling place—falls squarely within the heart-
land of the “usual burdens of voting.” Crawford, 553 U. S., 
at 198 (opinion of Stevens, J.). And voters can also ask a 
statutorily authorized proxy—a family member, a household 
member, or a caregiver—to mail a ballot or drop it off at any 
time within 27 days of an election. 
Arizona also makes special provision for certain groups of 
voters who are unable to use the early voting system. 
Every county must establish a special election board to serve 
voters who are “confned as the result of a continuing illness 
or physical disability,” are unable to go to the polls on elec-
tion day, and do not wish to cast an early vote by mail. Ariz. 
Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16–549(C) (Cum. Supp. 2020). At the re-
quest of a voter in this group, the board will deliver a ballot 
in person and return it on the voter's behalf. §§ 16–549(C), 
(E). Arizona law also requires employers to give employees 
time off to vote when they are otherwise scheduled to work 
certain shifts on election day. § 16–402 (2015). 
The plaintiffs were unable to provide statistical evidence 
showing that HB 2023 had a disparate impact on minority 
voters. Instead, they called witnesses who testifed that 
third-party ballot collection tends to be used most heavily in 
pation. See supra, at 680. A voting rule with that effect would not be— 
to use the dissent's forid example—one that a “minority vote suppressor 
in Arizona” would want in his or her “bag of tricks.” Post, at 722. 
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Opinion of the Court 
disadvantaged communities and that minorities in Arizona— 
especially Native Americans—are disproportionately dis-
advantaged. 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 868, 870. But from that 
evidence the District Court could conclude only that prior to 
HB 2023's enactment, “minorities generically were more 
likely than non-minorities to return their early ballots with 
the assistance of third parties.” Id., at 870. How much 
more, the court could not say from the record. Ibid. Nei-
ther can we. And without more concrete evidence, we can-
not conclude that HB 2023 results in less opportunity to par-
ticipate in the political process.
19 
19 Not one to let the absence of a key fnding get in the way, the dissent 
concludes from its own review of the evidence that HB 2023 “prevents 
many Native Americans from making effective use of one of the principal 
means of voting in Arizona,” and that “[w]hat is an inconsequential burden 
for others is for these citizens a severe hardship.” Post, at 727. What is 
missing from those statements is any evidence about the actual size of the 
disparity. (For that matter, by the time the dissent gets around to assess-
ing HB 2023, it appears to have lost its zeal for statistical signifcance, 
which is nowhere to be seen. See post, at 724–729, and n. 13.) The 
reader will search in vain to discover where the District Court “found” to 
what extent HB 2023 would make it “ `signifcantly more diffcult' ” for 
Native Americans to vote. Post, at 728, n. 15 (citing 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 
868, 870). Rather, “[b]ased on” the very same evidence the dissent cites, 
the District Court could fnd only that minorities were “generically” more 
likely than non-minorities to make use of third-party ballot-collection. 
Id., at 870. The District Court's explanation as to why speaks for itself: 
“Although there are signifcant socioeconomic disparities between mi-
norities and non-minorities in Arizona, these disparities are an imprecise 
proxy for disparities in ballot collection use. Plaintiffs do not argue that 
all or even most socioeconomically disadvantaged voters use ballot collec-
tion services, nor does the evidence support such a fnding. Rather, the 
anecdotal estimates from individual ballot collectors indicate that a rela-
tively small number of voters have used ballot collection services in past 
elections.” Ibid.; see also id., at 881 (“[B]allot collection was used as a 
[get-out-the-vote] strategy in mostly low-effcacy minority communities, 
though the Court cannot say how often voters used ballot collection, nor 
can it measure the degree or signifcance of any disparities in its usage” 
(emphasis added)).

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Opinion of the Court 
Even if the plaintiffs had shown a disparate burden caused 
by HB 2023, the State's justifcations would suffce to avoid 
§ 2 liability. “A State indisputably has a compelling interest 
in preserving the integrity of its election process.” Purcell 
v. Gonzalez, 549 U. S. 1, 4 (2006) (per curiam ) (internal quo-
tation marks omitted). Limiting the classes of persons who 
may handle early ballots to those less likely to have ulterior 
motives deters potential fraud and improves voter conf-
dence. That was the view of the bipartisan Commission on 
Federal Election Reform chaired by former President Jimmy 
Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker. The 
Carter-Baker Commission noted that “[a]bsentee balloting is 
vulnerable to abuse in several ways: . . . . Citizens who vote 
at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church 
are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to 
intimidation.” Report of the Comm'n on Fed. Election Re-
form, Building Confdence in U. S. Elections 46 (Sept. 2005). 
The Commission warned that “[v]ote buying schemes are 
far more diffcult to detect when citizens vote by mail,” and 
it recommended that “States therefore should reduce the 
risks of fraud and abuse in absentee voting by prohibiting 
`third-party' organizations, candidates, and political party 
activists from handling absentee ballots.” Ibid. The Com-
mission ultimately recommended that States limit the classes 
of persons who may handle absentee ballots to “the voter, an 
acknowledged family member, the U. S. Postal Service or 
other legitimate shipper, or election offcials.” Id., at 47. 
HB 2023 is even more permissive in that it also authorizes 
ballot-handling by a voter's household member and care-
giver. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16–1005(I)(2). Restric-
tions on ballot collection are also common in other States. 
See 948 F. 3d, at 1068–1069, 1088–1143 (Bybee, J., dissenting) 
(collecting state provisions). 
The Court of Appeals thought that the State's justifca-
tions for HB 2023 were tenuous in large part because there

686 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Opinion of the Court 
was no evidence that fraud in connection with early ballots 
had occurred in Arizona. See id., at 1045–1046. But pre-
vention of fraud is not the only legitimate interest served by 
restrictions on ballot collection. As the Carter-Baker Com-
mission recognized, third-party ballot collection can lead to 
pressure and intimidation. And it should go without saying 
that a State may take action to prevent election fraud with-
out waiting for it to occur and be detected within its own 
borders. Section 2's command that the political processes 
remain equally open surely does not demand that “a State's 
political system sustain some level of damage before the leg-
islature [can] take corrective action.” Munro v. Socialist 
Workers Party , 479 U. S. 189, 195 (1986). Fraud is a real 
risk that accompanies mail-in voting even if Arizona had the 
good fortune to avoid it. Election fraud has had serious con-
sequences in other States. For example, the North Carolina 
Board of Elections invalidated the results of a 2018 race for 
a seat in the House of Representatives for evidence of fraud-
ulent mail-in ballots.
20 The Arizona Legislature was not ob-
ligated to wait for something similar to happen closer to 
home.
21 
20 See Blinder, Election Fraud in North Carolina Leads to New 
Charges for Republican Operative, N. Y . Times, July 30, 2019, https:// 
www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/mccrae-dowless-indictment.html; Graham, 
North Carolina Had No Choice, The Atlantic, Feb. 22, 2019, https://www. 
theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/north-carolina-9th-fraud-board -
orders-new-election/583369/. 
21 The dissent's primary argument regarding HB 2023 concerns its effect 
on Native Americans who live on remote reservations. The dissent notes 
that many of these voters do not receive mail delivery at home, that the 
nearest post offce may be some distance from their homes, and that they 
may not have automobiles. Post, at 724–725. We do not dismiss these 
problems, but for a number of reasons, they do not provide a basis for invali-
dating HB 2023. The burdens that fall on remote communities are miti-
gated by the long period of time prior to an election during which a vote may 
be cast either in person or by mail and by the legality of having a ballot 
picked up and mailed by family or household members. And in this suit, 
no individual voter testifed that HB 2023 would make it signifcantly more 
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Opinion of the Court 
As with the out-of-precinct policy, the modest evidence of 
racially disparate burdens caused by HB 2023, in light of the 
State's justifcations, leads us to the conclusion that the law 
does not violate § 2 of the VRA. 
V 
We also granted certiorari to review whether the Court of 
Appeals erred in concluding that HB 2023 was enacted with 
a discriminatory purpose. The District Court found that it 
was not, 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 882, and appellate review of that 
conclusion is for clear error, Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 
U. S. 273, 287–288 (1982). If the district court's view of the 
evidence is plausible in light of the entire record, an appellate 
court may not reverse even if it is convinced that it would 
have weighed the evidence differently in the frst instance. 
Anderson v. Bessemer City , 470 U. S. 564, 573–574 (1985). 
“Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, 
the factfnder's choice between them cannot be clearly 
erroneous.” Id., at 574. 
The District Court's fnding on the question of discrimina-
tory intent had ample support in the record. Applying the 
familiar approach outlined in Arlington Heights v. Metropol-
itan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266–268 
(1977), the District Court considered the historical back-
ground and the sequence of events leading to HB 2023's 
enactment; it looked for any departures from the normal leg-
islative process; it considered relevant legislative history; 
diffcult for him or her to vote. 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 871. Moreover, the 
Postal Service is required by law to “provide a maximum degree of effec-
tive and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small 
towns where post offces are not self-sustaining.” 39 U. S. C. § 101(b); see 
also § 403(b)(3). Small post offces may not be closed “solely for operating 
at a defcit,” § 101(b), and any decision to close or consolidate a post offce 
may be appealed to the Postal Regulatory Commission, see § 404(d)(5). 
An alleged failure by the Postal Service to comply with its statutory obli-
gations in a particular location does not in itself provide a ground for 
overturning a voting rule that applies throughout an entire State. 
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Opinion of the Court 
and it weighed the law's impact on different racial groups. 
See 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 879. 
The court noted, among other things, that HB 2023's 
enactment followed increased use of ballot collection as a 
Democratic get-out-the-vote strategy and came “on the heels 
of several prior efforts to restrict ballot collection, some of 
which were spearheaded by former Arizona State Senator 
Don Shooter.” Id., at 879. Shooter's own election in 2010 
had been close and racially polarized. Aiming in part to 
frustrate the Democratic Party's get-out-the-vote strategy, 
Shooter made what the court termed “unfounded and often 
far-fetched allegations of ballot collection fraud.” Id., at 
880. But what came after the airing of Shooter's claims and 
a “racially-tinged” video created by a private party was 
a serious legislative debate on the wisdom of early mail-in 
voting. Ibid.
22 
That debate, the District Court concluded, was sincere and 
led to the passage of HB 2023 in 2016. Proponents of the 
bill repeatedly argued that mail-in ballots are more suscepti-
ble to fraud than in-person voting. Ibid. The bill found 
support from a few minority offcials and organizations, one 
of which expressed concern that ballot collectors were taking 
advantage of elderly Latino voters. Ibid. And while some 
opponents of the bill accused Republican legislators of har-
boring racially discriminatory motives, that view was not 
uniform. See ibid. One Democratic state senator pithily 
described the “ `problem' ” HB 2023 aimed to “ `solv[e]' ” as 
the fact that “ `one party is better at collecting ballots than 
the other one.' ” Id., at 882 (quoting Tr. Exh. 25, at 35). 
22 The District Court also noted prior attempts on the part of the Ari-
zona Legislature to regulate or limit third-party ballot collection in 2011 
and 2013. It reasonably concluded that any procedural irregularities in 
those attempts had less probative value for inferring the purpose behind 
HB 2023 because the bills were passed “during different legislative ses-
sions by a substantially different composition of legislators.” 329 F. Supp. 
3d, at 881. 
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Opinion of the Court 
We are more than satisfed that the District Court's inter-
pretation of the evidence is permissible. The spark for the 
debate over mail-in voting may well have been provided by 
one Senator's enfamed partisanship, but partisan motives 
are not the same as racial motives. See Cooper v. Harris, 
581 U. S. 285, 308 (2017). The District Court noted that the 
voting preferences of members of a racial group may make 
the former look like the latter, but it carefully distinguished 
between the two. See 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 879, 882. And 
while the District Court recognized that the “racially-
tinged” video helped spur the debate about ballot collection, 
it found no evidence that the legislature as a whole was im-
bued with racial motives. Id., at 879–880. 
The Court of Appeals did not dispute the District Court's 
assessment of the sincerity of HB 2023's proponents. It 
even agreed that some members of the legislature had a “sin-
cere, though mistaken, non-race-based belief that there had 
been fraud in third-party ballot collection, and that the prob-
lem needed to be addressed.” 948 F. 3d, at 1040. The 
Court of Appeals nevertheless concluded that the District 
Court committed clear error by failing to apply a “ `cat's 
paw' ” theory sometimes used in employment discrimination 
cases. Id., at 1040–1041. A “cat's paw” is a “dupe” who is 
“used by another to accomplish his purposes.” Webster's 
New International Dictionary 425 (2d ed. 1934). A plaintiff 
in a “cat's paw” case typically seeks to hold the plaintiff's 
employer liable for “the animus of a supervisor who was not 
charged with making the ultimate [adverse] employment 
decision.” Staub v. Proctor Hospital, 562 U. S. 411, 415 
(2011). 
The “cat's paw” theory has no application to legislative 
bodies. The theory rests on the agency relationship that ex-
ists between an employer and a supervisor, but the legisla-
tors who vote to adopt a bill are not the agents of the bill's 
sponsor or proponents. Under our form of government, leg-
islators have a duty to exercise their judgment and to repre-
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690 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
sent their constituents. It is insulting to suggest that they 
are mere dupes or tools. 
* * * 
Arizona's out-of-precinct policy and HB 2023 do not violate 
§ 2 of the VRA, and HB 2023 was not enacted with a racially 
discriminatory purpose. The judgment of the Court of Ap-
peals is reversed, and the cases are remanded for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
It is so ordered. 
Justice Gorsuch, with whom Justice Thomas joins, 
concurring. 
I join the Court's opinion in full, but fag one thing it does 
not decide. Our cases have assumed—without deciding— 
that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 furnishes an implied cause 
of action under § 2. See Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 
60, and n. 8 (1980) (plurality opinion). Lower courts have 
treated this as an open question. E. g., Washington v. 
Finlay, 664 F. 2d 913, 926 (CA4 1981). Because no party 
argues that the plaintiffs lack a cause of action here, and 
because the existence (or not) of a cause of action does not 
go to a court's subject-matter jurisdiction, see Reyes Mata 
v. Lynch, 576 U. S. 143, 150 (2015), this Court need not and 
does not address that issue today. 
Justice Kagan, with whom Justice Breyer and 
Justice Sotomayor join, dissenting. 
If a single statute represents the best of America, it is the 
Voting Rights Act. It marries two great ideals: democracy 
and racial equality. And it dedicates our country to carry-
ing them out. Section 2, the provision at issue here, guaran-
tees that members of every racial group will have equal 
voting opportunities. Citizens of every race will have the 
same shot to participate in the political process and to elect 
representatives of their choice. They will all own our de-
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Kagan, J., dissenting 
mocracy together—no one more and no one less than any 
other. 
If a single statute reminds us of the worst of America, it 
is the Voting Rights Act. Because it was—and remains—so 
necessary. Because a century after the Civil War was 
fought, at the time of the Act's passage, the promise of politi-
cal equality remained a distant dream for African American 
citizens. Because States and localities continually “con-
triv[ed] new rules,” mostly neutral on their face but discrimi-
natory in operation, to keep minority voters from the polls. 
South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 335 (1966). 
Because “Congress had reason to suppose” that States would 
“try similar maneuvers in the future”—“pour[ing] old poison 
into new bottles” to suppress minority votes. Ibid.; Reno v. 
Bossier Parish School Bd., 528 U. S. 320, 366 (2000) (Sou-
ter, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Because 
Congress has been proved right. 
The Voting Rights Act is ambitious, in both goal and scope. 
When President Lyndon Johnson sent the bill to Congress, 
ten days after John Lewis led marchers across the Edmund 
Pettus Bridge, he explained that it was “carefully drafted to 
meet its objective—the end of discrimination in voting in 
America.” H. R. Doc. No. 120, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 1–2 
(1965). He was right about how the Act's drafting refected 
its aim. “The end of discrimination in voting” is a far-
reaching goal. And the Voting Rights Act's text is just as 
far-reaching. A later amendment, adding the provision at 
issue here, became necessary when this Court construed the 
statute too narrowly. And in the last decade, this Court as-
sailed the Act again, undoing its vital Section 5. See Shelby 
County v. Holder, 570 U. S. 529 (2013). But Section 2 of the 
Act remains, as written, as expansive as ever—demanding 
that every citizen of this country possess a right at once 
grand and obvious: the right to an equal opportunity to vote. 
Today, the Court undermines Section 2 and the right it 
provides. The majority fears that the statute Congress

692 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
wrote is too “radical”—that it will invalidate too many state 
voting laws. See ante, at 674, 677–678. So the majority 
writes its own set of rules, limiting Section 2 from multiple 
directions. See ante, at 669–672. Wherever it can, the ma-
jority gives a cramped reading to broad language. And then 
it uses that reading to uphold two election laws from Arizona 
that discriminate against minority voters. I could say—and 
will in the following pages—that this is not how the Court is 
supposed to interpret and apply statutes. But that ordinary 
critique woefully undersells the problem. What is tragic 
here is that the Court has (yet again) rewritten—in order to 
weaken—a statute that stands as a monument to America's 
greatness, and protects against its basest impulses. What 
is tragic is that the Court has damaged a statute designed 
to bring about “the end of discrimination in voting.” I re-
spectfully dissent. 
I 
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is an extraordinary law. 
Rarely has a statute required so much sacrifce to ensure 
its passage. Never has a statute done more to advance the 
Nation's highest ideals. And few laws are more vital in the 
current moment. Yet in the last decade, this Court has 
treated no statute worse. To take the measure of today's 
harm, a look to the Act's past must come frst. The idea is 
not to recount, as the majority hurriedly does, some bygone 
era of voting discrimination. See ante, at 655–656. It is in-
stead to describe the electoral practices that the Act targets— 
and to show the high stakes of the present controversy. 
A 
Democratic ideals in America got off to a glorious start; 
democratic practice not so much. The Declaration of In-
dependence made an awe-inspiring promise: to institute a 
government “deriving [its] just powers from the consent of 
the governed.” But for most of the Nation's frst century, 
that pledge ran to white men only. The earliest state elec-
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Kagan, J., dissenting 
tion laws excluded from the franchise African Americans, 
Native Americans, women, and those without property. See 
A. Keyssar, The Right To Vote: The Contested History of 
Democracy in the United States 8–21, 54–60 (2000). In 
1855, on the precipice of the Civil War, only fve States per-
mitted African Americans to vote. Id., at 55. And at the 
federal level, our Court's most deplorable holding made sure 
that no black people could enter the voting booth. See Dred 
Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857). 
But the “American ideal of political equality . . . could not 
forever tolerate the limitation of the right to vote” to whites 
only. Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 103–104 (1980) (Mar-
shall, J., dissenting). And a civil war, dedicated to ensuring 
“government of the people, by the people, for the people,” 
brought constitutional change. In 1870, after a hard-fought 
battle over ratifcation, the Fifteenth Amendment carried 
the Nation closer to its founding aspirations. “The right of 
citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or 
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of 
race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Those 
words promised to enfranchise millions of black citizens who 
only a decade earlier had been slaves. Frederick Douglass 
held that the Amendment “means that we are placed upon 
an equal footing with all other men”—that with the vote, 
“liberty is to be the right of all.” 4 The Frederick Douglass 
Papers 270–271 (J. Blassingame & J. McKivigan eds. 1991). 
President Grant had seen much blood spilled in the Civil 
War; now he spoke of the fruits of that sacrifce. In a self-
described “unusual” message to Congress, he heralded the 
Fifteenth Amendment as “a measure of grander importance 
than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our 
free Government”—as “the most important event that has 
occurred since the nation came into life.” Ulysses S. Grant, 
Message to the Senate and House of Representatives (Mar. 
30, 1870), in 7 Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the 
Presidents 1789–1897, pp. 55–56 (J. Richardson ed. 1898). 
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Momentous as the Fifteenth Amendment was, celebration 
of its achievements soon proved premature. The Amend-
ment's guarantees “quickly became dead letters in much of 
the country.” Foner, The Strange Career of the Recon-
struction Amendments, 108 Yale L. J. 2003, 2007 (1999). 
African Americans daring to go to the polls often “met with 
coordinated intimidation and violence.” Northwest Austin 
Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U. S. 193, 218– 
219 (2009) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment in part and 
dissenting in part). And almost immediately, legislators dis-
covered that bloodless actions could also suffce to limit the 
electorate to white citizens. Many States, especially in the 
South, suppressed the black vote through a dizzying array of 
methods: literacy tests, poll taxes, registration requirements, 
and property qualifcations. See Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 
310–312. Most of those laws, though facially neutral, gave 
enough discretion to election offcials to prevent signifcant 
effects on poor or uneducated whites. The idea, as one Vir-
ginia representative put it, was “to disfranchise every negro 
that [he] could disfranchise,” and “as few white people as 
possible.” Keyssar 113. Decade after decade after decade, 
election rules blocked African Americans—and in some 
States, Hispanics and Native Americans too—from making 
use of the ballot. See Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112, 132 
(1970) (opinion of Black, J.) (discussing treatment of non-black 
groups). By 1965, only 27% of black Georgians, 19% of black 
Alabamians, and 7%—yes, 7%—of black Mississippians were 
registered to vote. See C. Bullock, R. Gaddie, & J. Wert, 
The Rise and Fall of the Voting Rights Act 23 (2016). 
The civil rights movement, and the events of a single 
Bloody Sunday, created pressure for change. Selma was the 
heart of an Alabama county whose 15,000 black citizens in-
cluded, in 1961, only 156 on the voting rolls. See D. Garrow, 
Protest at Selma 31 (1978). In the frst days of 1965, the 
city became the epicenter of demonstrations meant to force

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Kagan, J., dissenting 
Southern election offcials to register African American 
voters. As weeks went by without results, organizers an-
nounced a march from Selma to Montgomery. On March 7, 
some 600 protesters, led by future Congressman John Lewis, 
sought to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. State troopers 
in riot gear responded brutally: “Turning their nightsticks 
horizontally, they rushed into the crowd, knocking people 
over like bowling pins.” G. May, Bending Toward Justice 87 
(2013). Then came men on horseback, “swinging their clubs 
and ropes like cowboys driving cattle to market.” Ibid. 
The protesters were beaten, knocked unconscious, and blood-
ied. Lewis's skull was fractured. “I thought I was going to 
die on this bridge,” he later recalled. Rojas, Selma Helped 
Defne John Lewis's Life, N. Y . Times, July 28, 2020. 
A galvanized country responded. Ten days after the 
Selma march, President Johnson wrote to Congress propos-
ing legislation to “help rid the Nation of racial discrimination 
in every aspect of the electoral process and thereby insure 
the right of all to vote.” H. R. Doc. No. 120, at 1. (To his 
attorney general, Johnson was still more emphatic: “I want 
you to write the goddamnedest toughest voting rights act 
that you can devise.” H. Raines, My Soul Is Rested 337 
(1983).) And in August 1965, after the bill's supporters 
overcame a Senate flibuster, Johnson signed the Voting 
Rights Act into law. Echoing Grant's description of the Fif-
teenth Amendment, Johnson called the statute “one of the 
most monumental laws in the entire history of American 
freedom.” Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. John-
son, Vol. 2, Aug. 6, 1965, p. 841 (1966) (Johnson Papers). 
“After a century's failure to fulfll the promise” of the Fif-
teenth Amendment, “passage of the VRA fnally led to signal 
improvement.” Shelby County, 570 U. S., at 562 (Ginsburg, 
J., dissenting). In the fve years after the statute's passage, 
almost as many African Americans registered to vote in six 
Southern States as in the entire century before 1965. See

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Kagan, J., dissenting 
Davidson, The Voting Rights Act: A Brief History, in Contro-
versies in Minority Voting 21 (B. Grofman & C. Davidson 
eds. 1992). The crudest attempts to block voting access, like 
literacy tests and poll taxes, disappeared. Legislatures 
often replaced those vote denial schemes with new meas-
ures—mostly to do with districting—designed to dilute 
the impact of minority votes. But the Voting Rights Act, 
operating for decades at full strength, stopped many of those 
measures too. See, e.g., Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S. 380 
(1991); Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544 (1969). 
As a famed dissent assessed the situation about a half-
century after the statute's enactment: The Voting Rights Act 
had become “one of the most consequential, effcacious, and 
amply justifed exercises of federal legislative power in our 
Nation's history.” Shelby County , 570 U. S., at 562 (Gins-
burg, J., dissenting).
1 
B 
Yet efforts to suppress the minority vote continue. No one 
would know this from reading the majority opinion. It hails 
the “good news” that legislative efforts had mostly shifted by 
the 1980s from vote denial to vote dilution. Ante, at 660. 
And then it moves on to other matters, as though the Voting 
Rights Act no longer has a problem to address—as though once 
literacy tests and poll taxes disappeared, so too did efforts to 
curb minority voting. But as this Court recognized about a 
decade ago, “racial discrimination and racially polarized vot-
ing are not ancient history.” Bartlett v. Strickland, 556 
U. S. 1, 25 (2009) (opinion of Kennedy, J.). Indeed, the prob-
lem of voting discrimination has become worse since that 
1 The majority brands this historical account part of an “extended effort 
at misdirection.” Ante, at 674. I am tempted merely to reply: Enough 
said about the majority's outlook on the statute before us. But I will add 
what should be obvious—that no one can understand the Voting Rights 
Act without recognizing what led Congress to enact it, and what Congress 
wanted it to change.

Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 697 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
time—in part because of what this Court did in Shelby 
County. Weaken the Voting Rights Act, and predictable 
consequences follow: yet a further generation of voter sup-
pression laws. 
Much of the Voting Rights Act's success lay in its capacity 
to meet ever-new forms of discrimination. Experience 
showed that “[w]henever one form of voting discrimination 
was identifed and prohibited, others sprang up in its 
place.” Shelby County, 570 U. S., at 560 (Ginsburg, J., dis-
senting). Combating those efforts was like “battling the 
Hydra”—or to use a less cultured reference, like playing 
a game of whack-a-mole. Ibid. So Congress, in Section 5 
of the Act, gave the Department of Justice authority to re-
view all new rules devised by jurisdictions with a history 
of voter suppression—and to block any that would have dis-
criminatory effects. See 52 U. S. C. §§ 10304(a)–(b). In that 
way, the Act would prevent the use of new, more nuanced 
methods to restrict the voting opportunities of non-white 
citizens. 
And for decades, Section 5 operated as intended. Be-
tween 1965 and 2006, the Department stopped almost 1200 
voting laws in covered areas from taking effect. See Shelby 
County, 570 U. S., at 571 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Some 
of those laws used districting to dilute minority voting 
strength—making sure that the votes of minority citizens 
would carry less weight than the votes of whites in electing 
candidates. Other laws, even if facially neutral, dispropor-
tionately curbed the ability of non-white citizens to cast a 
ballot at all. So, for example, a jurisdiction might require 
forms of identifcation that those voters were less likely to 
have; or it might limit voting places and times convenient 
for those voters; or it might purge its voter rolls through 
mechanisms especially likely to ensnare them. See id., at 
574–575. In reviewing mountains of such evidence in 2006, 
Congress saw a continuing need for Section 5. Although 
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Kagan, J., dissenting 
“[d]iscrimination today is more subtle than the visible meth-
ods used in 1965,” Congress found, it still produces “the same 
[effects], namely a diminishing of the minority community's 
ability to fully participate in the electoral process.” H. R. 
Rep. No. 109–478, p. 6 (2006). Congress thus reauthorized 
the preclearance scheme for 25 years. 
But this Court took a different view. Finding that “[o]ur 
country has changed,” the Court saw only limited instances 
of voting discrimination—and so no further need for pre-
clearance. Shelby County, 570 U. S., at 547–549, 557. Dis-
placing Congress's contrary judgment, the Court struck 
down the coverage formula essential to the statute's opera-
tion. The legal analysis offered was perplexing: The Court 
based its decision on a “principle of equal [state] sover-
eignty” that a prior decision of ours had rejected—and that 
has not made an appearance since. Id., at 544 (majority 
opinion); see id., at 587–588 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). 
Worse yet was the Court's blithe confdence in assessing 
what was needed and what was not. “[T]hings have 
changed dramatically,” the Court reiterated, id., at 547: The 
statute that was once a necessity had become an imposition. 
But how did the majority know there was nothing more for 
Section 5 to do—that the (undoubted) changes in the country 
went so far as to make the provision unnecessary? It didn't, 
as Justice Ginsburg explained in dissent. The majority's 
faith that discrimination was almost gone derived, at least in 
part, from the success of Section 5—from its record of block-
ing discriminatory voting schemes. Discarding Section 5 
because those schemes had diminished was “like throwing 
away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not get-
ting wet.” Id., at 590. 
The rashness of the act soon became evident. Once Sec-
tion 5's strictures came off, States and localities put in place 
new restrictive voting laws, with foreseeably adverse effects 
on minority voters. On the very day Shelby County issued, 
Texas announced that it would implement a strict voter-

Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 699 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
identifcation requirement that had failed to clear Section 5. 
See Elmendorf & Spencer, Administering Section 2 of the 
Voting Rights Act After Shelby County, 115 Colum. L. Rev. 
2143, 2145–2146 (2015). Other States—Alabama, Virginia, 
Mississippi—fell like dominoes, adopting measures similarly 
vulnerable to preclearance review. See ibid. The North 
Carolina Legislature, starting work the day after Shelby 
County, enacted a sweeping election bill eliminating same-
day registration, forbidding out-of-precinct voting, and re-
ducing early voting, including souls-to-the-polls Sundays. 
(That law went too far even without Section 5: A court 
struck it down because the State's legislators had a racially 
discriminatory purpose. North Carolina State Conference 
of NAACP v. McCrory, 831 F. 3d 204 (CA4 2016).) States 
and localities redistricted—drawing new boundary lines or 
replacing neighborhood-based seats with at-large seats—in 
ways guaranteed to reduce minority representation. See 
Elmendorf, 115 Colum. L. Rev., at 2146. And jurisdictions 
closed polling places in mostly minority areas, enhancing an 
already pronounced problem. See Brief for Leadership 
Conference on Civil and Human Rights et al. as Amici Cu-
riae 14–15 (listing closure schemes); Pettigrew, The Racial 
Gap in Wait Times, 132 Pol. Sci. Q. 527, 527 (2017) (fnding 
that lines in minority precincts are twice as long as in white 
ones, and that a minority voter is six times more likely to 
wait more than an hour).
2 
2 Although causation is hard to establish defnitively, those post-Shelby 
County changes appear to have reduced minority participation in the next 
election cycle. The most comprehensive study available found that in 
areas freed from Section 5 review, white turnout remained the same, but 
“minority participation dropped by 2.1 percentage points”—a stark rever-
sal in direction from prior elections. Ang, Do 40-Year-Old Facts Still 
Matter?, 11 Am. Econ. J.: Applied Economics, No. 3, pp. 1, 35 (2019). The 
results, said the scholar who crunched the numbers, “provide early evi-
dence that the Shelby ruling may jeopardize decades of voting rights prog-
ress.” Id., at 36. The election laws passed in Shelby County's wake 
“may have negated many of the gains made under preclearance.” Ibid. 
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700 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
And that was just the frst wave of post-Shelby County 
laws. In recent months, State after State has taken up or 
enacted legislation erecting new barriers to voting. See 
Brennan Center for Justice, Voting Laws Roundup: May 2021 
(online source archived at www.supremecourt.gov) (compil-
ing legislation). Those laws shorten the time polls are open, 
both on Election Day and before. They impose new prereq-
uisites to voting by mail, and shorten the windows to apply 
for and return mail ballots. They make it harder to register 
to vote, and easier to purge voters from the rolls. Two laws 
even ban handing out food or water to voters standing in 
line. Some of those restrictions may be lawful under the 
Voting Rights Act. But chances are that some have the 
kind of impact the Act was designed to prevent—that they 
make the political process less open to minority voters than 
to others. 
So the Court decides this Voting Rights Act case at a peril-
ous moment for the Nation's commitment to equal citizen-
ship. It decides this case in an era of voting-rights 
retrenchment—when too many States and localities are re-
stricting access to voting in ways that will predictably de-
prive members of minority groups of equal access to the 
ballot box. If “any racial discrimination in voting is too 
much,” as the Shelby County Court recited, then the Act still 
has much to do. 570 U. S., at 557. Or more precisely, the 
fraction of the Act remaining—the Act as diminished by the 
Court's hand. Congress never meant for Section 2 to bear 
all of the weight of the Act's commitments. That provision 
looks to courts, not to the Executive Branch, to restrain dis-
criminatory voting practices. And litigation is an after-the-
fact remedy, incapable of providing relief until an election— 
usually, more than one election—has come and gone. See 
id., at 572 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). So Section 2 was sup-
posed to be a back-up, for all its sweep and power. But 
after Shelby County, the vitality of Section 2—a “permanent, 
nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting”—matters 
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Kagan, J., dissenting 
more than ever. Id., at 557 (majority opinion). For after 
Shelby County, Section 2 is what voters have left. 
II 
Section 2, as drafted, is well-equipped to meet the chal-
lenge. Congress meant to eliminate all “discriminatory 
election systems or practices which operate, designedly or 
otherwise, to minimize or cancel out the voting strength and 
political effectiveness of minority groups.” S. Rep. No. 97– 
417, p. 28 (1982) (S. Rep.). And that broad intent is manifest 
in the provision's broad text. As always, this Court's task 
is to read that language as Congress wrote it—to give the 
section all the scope and potency Congress drafted it to have. 
So I start by showing how Section 2's text requires courts 
to eradicate voting practices that make it harder for mem-
bers of some races than of others to cast a vote, unless such 
a practice is necessary to support a strong state interest. I 
then show how far from that text the majority strays. Its 
analysis permits exactly the kind of vote suppression that 
Section 2, by its terms, rules out of bounds. 
A 
Section 2, as relevant here, has two interlocking parts. 
Subsection (a) states the law's basic prohibition: 
“No voting qualifcation or prerequisite to voting or 
standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or ap-
plied by any State or political subdivision in a manner 
which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of 
any citizen of the United States to vote on account of 
race or color.” 52 U. S. C. § 10301(a). 
Subsection (b) then tells courts how to apply that bar—or 
otherwise said, when to fnd that an infringement of the vot-
ing right has occurred: 
“A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on 
the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the politi-

702 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
cal processes leading to nomination or election in the 
State or political subdivision are not equally open to par-
ticipation by members of [a given race] in that [those] 
members have less opportunity than other members of 
the electorate to participate in the political process and 
to elect representatives of their choice.” § 10301(b).
3 
Those provisions have a great many words, and I address 
them further below. But their essential import is plain: 
Courts are to strike down voting rules that contribute to a 
racial disparity in the opportunity to vote, taking all the rele-
vant circumstances into account. 
The frst thing to note about Section 2 is how far its pro-
hibitory language sweeps. The provision bars any “voting 
qualifcation,” any “prerequisite to voting,” or any “standard, 
practice, or procedure” that “results in a denial or abridge-
ment of the right” to “vote on account of race.” The over-
lapping list of covered state actions makes clear that Section 
2 extends to every kind of voting or election rule. Congress 
carved out nothing pertaining to “voter qualifcations or 
the manner in which elections are conducted.” Holder v. 
Hall, 512 U. S. 874, 922 (1994) (Thomas, J., concurring in 
judgment). So, for example, the provision “covers all man-
ner of registration requirements, the practices surrounding 
registration,” the “locations of polling places, the times polls 
are open, the use of paper ballots as opposed to voting 
machines, and other similar aspects of the voting process 
that might be manipulated to deny any citizen the right to 
cast a ballot and have it properly counted.” Ibid. All those 
rules and more come within the statute—so long as they 
result in a race-based “denial or abridgement” of the vot-
ing right. And the “denial or abridgement” phrase speaks 
3 A fnal sentence, not at issue here, specifes that the voting right pro-
vided does not entitle minority citizens to proportional representation in 
electoral offces. See infra, at 708, n. 6. 
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broadly too. “[A]bridgment necessarily means something 
more subtle and less drastic than the complete denial of 
the right to cast a ballot, denial being separately forbidden.” 
Bossier, 528 U. S., at 359 (Souter, J., concurring in part and 
dissenting in part). It means to “curtail,” rather than take 
away, the voting right. American Heritage Dictionary 4 
(1969). 
The “results in” language, connecting the covered voting 
rules to the prohibited voting abridgment, tells courts that 
they are to focus on the law's effects. Rather than hinge 
liability on state offcials' motives, Congress made it ride 
on their actions' consequences. That decision was as con-
sidered as considered comes. This Court, as the majority 
notes, had construed the original Section 2 to apply to fa-
cially neutral voting practices “only if [they were] motivated 
by a discriminatory purpose.” Bolden, 446 U. S., at 62; see 
ante, at 658. Congress enacted the current Section 2 to re-
verse that outcome—to make clear that “results” alone could 
lead to liability. An intent test, the Senate Report ex-
plained, “asks the wrong question.” S. Rep., at 36. If mi-
nority citizens “are denied a fair opportunity to participate,” 
then “the system should be changed, regardless of” what 
“motives were in an offcial's mind.” Ibid. Congress also 
saw an intent test as imposing “an inordinately diffcult bur-
den for plaintiffs.” Ibid. Even if state actors had purpose-
fully discriminated, they would likely be “ab[le] to offer a 
non-racial rationalization,” supported by “a false trail” of “of-
fcial resolutions” and “other legislative history eschewing 
any racial motive.” Id., at 37. So only a results-focused 
statute could prevent States from fnding ways to abridge 
minority citizens' voting rights. 
But when to conclude—looking to effects, not purposes— 
that a denial or abridgment has occurred? Again, answer-
ing that question is subsection (b)'s function. See supra, at 
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704 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
“based on the totality of circumstances,” a State's electoral 
system is “not equally open” to members of a racial group. 
And then the subsection tells us what that means. A sys-
tem is not equally open if members of one race have “less 
opportunity” than others to cast votes, to participate in poli-
tics, or to elect representatives. The key demand, then, is 
for equal political opportunity across races. 
That equal “opportunity” is absent when a law or practice 
makes it harder for members of one racial group, than for 
others, to cast ballots. When Congress amended Section 2, 
the word “opportunity” meant what it also does today: “a 
favorable or advantageous combination of circumstances” for 
some action. See American Heritage Dictionary, at 922. 
In using that word, Congress made clear that the Voting 
Rights Act does not demand equal outcomes. If members 
of different races have the same opportunity to vote, but go 
to the ballot box at different rates, then so be it—that is 
their preference, and Section 2 has nothing to say. But if a 
law produces different voting opportunities across races—if 
it establishes rules and conditions of political participation 
that are less favorable (or advantageous) for one racial group 
than for others—then Section 2 kicks in. It applies, in 
short, whenever the law makes it harder for citizens of one 
race than of others to cast a vote.
4 
4 I agree with the majority that “very small differences” among racial 
groups do not matter. Ante, at 671. Some racial disparities are too small 
to support a fnding of unequal access because they are not statistically 
signifcant—that is, because they might have arisen from chance alone. 
See Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano, 563 U. S. 27, 39 (2011). The 
statistical signifcance test is standard in all legal contexts addressing dis-
parate impact. See Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U. S. 557, 587 (2009). In addi-
tion, there may be some threshold of what is sometimes called “practical 
signifcance”—a level of inequality that, even if statistically meaningful, is 
just too trivial for the legal system to care about. See Federal Judicial 
Center, Reference Manual on Scientifc Evidence 252 (3d ed. 2011) (discuss-
ing differences that are not “practically important”). 
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Kagan, J., dissenting 
And that is so even if (as is usually true) the law does not 
single out any race, but instead is facially neutral. Suppose, 
as Justice Scalia once did, that a county has a law limiting 
“voter registration [to] only three hours one day a week.” 
Chisom, 501 U. S., at 408 (dissenting opinion). And suppose 
that policy makes it “more diffcult for blacks to register than 
whites”—say, because the jobs African Americans dispropor-
tionately hold make it harder to take time off in that window. 
Ibid. Those citizens, Justice Scalia concluded, would then 
“have less opportunity `to participate in the political process' 
than whites, and § 2 would therefore be violated.” Ibid. 
(emphasis deleted). In enacting Section 2, Congress docu-
mented many similar (if less extreme) facially neutral 
rules—“registration requirements,” “voting and registration 
hours,” voter “purging” policies, and so forth—that create 
disparities in voting opportunities. S. Rep., at 10, n. 22; 
H. R. Rep. No. 97–227, pp. 11–17 (1981) (H. R. Rep.). Those 
laws, Congress thought, would violate Section 2, though they 
were not facially discriminatory, because they gave voters of 
different races unequal access to the political process. 
Congress also made plain, in calling for a totality-of-
circumstances inquiry, that equal voting opportunity is a 
function of both law and background conditions—in other 
words, that a voting rule's validity depends on how the rule 
operates in conjunction with facts on the ground. “[T]otal-
ity review,” this Court has explained, stems from Congress's 
recognition of “the demonstrated ingenuity of state and local 
governments in hobbling minority voting power.” Johnson 
v. De Grandy , 512 U. S. 997, 1018 (1994). Sometimes, of 
course, state actions overtly target a single race: For exam-
ple, Congress was acutely aware, in amending Section 2, of 
the elimination of polling places in African American neigh-
borhoods. See S. Rep., at 10, 11, and n. 22; H. R. Rep., at 
17, 35. But sometimes government offcials enact facially 
neutral laws that leverage—and become discriminatory by 
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dint of—pre-existing social and economic conditions. The 
classic historical cases are literacy tests and poll taxes. A 
more modern example is the one Justice Scalia gave, of lim-
ited registration hours. Congress knew how those laws 
worked: It saw that “inferior education, poor employment 
opportunities, and low incomes”—all conditions often corre-
lated with race—could turn even an ordinary-seeming 
election rule into an effective barrier to minority voting in 
certain circumstances. Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 
69 (1986) (plurality opinion). So Congress demanded, as this 
Court has recognized, “an intensely local appraisal” of a 
rule's impact—“a searching practical evaluation of the `past 
and present reality.' ” Id., at 79 (majority opinion); De 
Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1018 (quoting S. Rep., at 30). “The es-
sence of a § 2 claim,” we have said, is that an election law “in-
teracts with social and historical conditions” in a particular 
place to cause race-based inequality in voting opportunity. 
Gingles, 478 U. S., at 47 (majority opinion). That interaction 
is what the totality inquiry is mostly designed to discover. 
At the same time, the totality inquiry enables courts to 
take into account strong state interests supporting an elec-
tion rule. An all-things-considered inquiry, we have ex-
plained, is by its nature fexible. See De Grandy, 512 U. S., 
at 1018. On the one hand, it allows no “safe harbor[s]” for 
election rules resulting in discrimination. Ibid. On the 
other hand, it precludes automatic condemnation of those 
rules. Among the “balance of considerations” a court is to 
weigh is a State's need for the challenged policy. Houston 
Lawyers' Assn. v. Attorney General of Tex., 501 U. S. 419, 
427 (1991). But in making that assessment of state inter-
ests, a court must keep in mind—just as Congress did—the 
ease of “offer[ing] a non-racial rationalization” for even 
blatantly discriminatory laws. S. Rep., at 37; see supra, at 
703. State interests do not get accepted on faith. And even 
a genuine and strong interest will not suffce if a plaintiff can 
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Kagan, J., dissenting 
prove that it can be accomplished in a less discriminatory 
way. As we have put the point before: When a less racially 
biased law would not “signifcantly impair[ ] the State's inter-
est,” the discriminatory election rule must fall. Houston 
Lawyers' Assn., 501 U. S., at 428.
5 
So the text of Section 2, as applied in our precedents, tells 
us the following, every part of which speaks to the ambition 
of Congress's action. Section 2 applies to any voting rule, 
of any kind. The provision prohibits not just the denial but 
also the abridgment of a citizen's voting rights on account of 
race. The inquiry is focused on effects: It asks not about 
why state offcials enacted a rule, but about whether that 
rule results in racial discrimination. The discrimination 
that is of concern is inequality of voting opportunity. That 
5 The majority pretends that Houston Lawyers' Assn. did not ask about 
the availability of a less discriminatory means of serving the State's end, 
see ante, at 676, n. 16—but the inquiry is right there on page 428 (examin-
ing “if [the] impairment of a minority group's voting strength could be 
remedied without signifcantly impairing the State's interest in electing 
judges on a district-wide basis”). In posing that question, the Court did 
what Congress wanted, because absent a necessity test, States could too 
easily get away with offering “non-racial” but pretextual “rationaliza-
tion[s].” S. Rep., at 37; see supra, at 703. And the Court did what it 
always does in applying laws barring discriminatory effects—ask whether 
a challenged policy is necessary to achieve the asserted goal. See infra, 
at 715. 
Contrary to the majority's view, that kind of inquiry would not result 
in “invalidat[ing] just about any voting rule a State adopts.” Ante, at 
677. A plaintiff bears the burden of showing that a less discriminatory 
law would be “at least as effective in achieving the [State's] legitimate 
purpose.” Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 874 
(1997). And “cost may be an important factor” in that analysis, so the 
plaintiff could not (as the majority proposes) say merely that the State can 
combat fraud by “hiring more investigators and prosecutors.” Burwell v. 
Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U. S. 682, 730 (2014); ante, at 677. Given 
those features of the alternative-means inquiry, a State that tries both to 
serve its electoral interests and to give its minority citizens equal electoral 
access will rarely have anything to fear from a Section 2 suit.

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Kagan, J., dissenting 
kind of discrimination can arise from facially neutral (not just 
targeted) rules. There is a Section 2 problem when an elec-
tion rule, operating against the backdrop of historical, social, 
and economic conditions, makes it harder for minority citi-
zens than for others to cast ballots. And strong state inter-
ests may save an otherwise discriminatory rule, but only if 
that rule is needed to achieve them—that is, only if a less 
discriminatory rule will not attain the State's goal. 
That is a lot of law to apply in a Section 2 case. Real 
law—the kind created by Congress. (A strange thing, to 
hear about it all only in a dissent.) 
6 None of this law threat-
ens to “take down,” as the majority charges, the mass of 
state and local election rules. Ante, at 677. Here is the 
fipside of what I have said above, now from the plaintiff's 
perspective: Section 2 demands proof of a statistically sig-
6 Contra the majority, see ante, at 658–659, 674–675, and n. 14, the 
House-Senate compromise reached in amending Section 2 has nothing to 
do with the law relevant here. The majority is hazy about the content of 
this compromise for a reason: It was about proportional representation. 
As then-Justice Rehnquist explained, members of the Senate expressed 
concern that the “results in” language of the House-passed bill would pro-
vide not “merely for equal `access' to the political process” but also “for 
proportional representation” of minority voters. Mississippi Republican 
Executive Committee v. Brooks, 469 U. S. 1002, 1010 (1984) (dissenting 
opinion). Senator Dole's solution was to add text making clear that mi-
nority voters had a right to equal voting opportunities, but no right to 
elect minority candidates “in numbers equal to their proportion in the 
population.” 52 U. S. C. § 10301(b). The Dole Amendment, as Justice 
Rehnquist noted, ensured that under the “results in” language equal “ `ac-
cess' only was required.” 469 U. S., at 1010–1011; see 128 Cong. Rec. 
14132 (1982) (Sen. Dole explaining that as amended “the focus of the stand-
ard is on whether there is equal access to the political process, not on 
whether members of a particular minority group have achieved propor-
tional election results”). Nothing—literally nothing—suggests that the 
Senate wanted to water down the equal-access right that everyone agreed 
the House's language covered. So the majority is dead wrong to say that 
I want to “undo” the House-Senate compromise. Ante, at 674. It is the 
majority that wants to transform that compromise to support a view of 
Section 2 held in neither the House nor the Senate.

Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 709 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
nificant racial disparity in electoral opportunities (not 
outcomes) resulting from a law not needed to achieve a gov-
ernment's legitimate goals. That showing is hardly insub-
stantial; and as a result, Section 2 vote denial suits do not 
often succeed (even with lower courts applying the law as 
written, not the majority's new, concocted version). See 
Brief for State and Local Election Offcials as Amici Curiae 
15 (fnding only nine winning cases since Shelby County, each 
involving “an intensely local appraisal” of a “controversial 
polic[y] in specifc places”). But Section 2 was indeed meant 
to do something important—crucial to the operation of our 
democracy. The provision tells courts—however “radical” 
the majority might fnd the idea, ante, at 678—to eliminate 
facially neutral (as well as targeted) electoral rules that 
unnecessarily create inequalities of access to the political 
process. That is the very project of the statute, as con-
ceived and as written—and now as damaged by this Court. 
B 
The majority's opinion mostly inhabits a law-free zone. It 
congratulates itself in advance for giving Section 2's text 
“careful consideration.” Ante, at 667. And then it leaves 
that language almost wholly behind. See ante, at 667–674. 
(Every once in a while, when its lawmaking threatens to leap 
off the page, it thinks to sprinkle in a few random statutory 
words.) So too the majority barely mentions this Court's 
precedents construing Section 2's text. On both those 
counts, you can see why. As just described, Section 2's lan-
guage is broad. See supra, at 701–709. To read it fairly, 
then, is to read it broadly. And to read it broadly is to do 
much that the majority is determined to avoid. So the ma-
jority ignores the sweep of Section 2's prohibitory language. 
It fails to note Section 2's application to every conceivable 
kind of voting rule. It neglects to address the provision's 
concern with how those rules may “abridge[ ],” not just deny, 
minority citizens' voting rights. It declines to consider Con-
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gress's use of an effects test, rather than a purpose test, to 
assess the rules' legality. Nor does the majority acknowl-
edge the force of Section 2's implementing provision. The 
majority says as little as possible about what it means for 
voting to be “equally open,” or for voters to have an equal 
“opportunity” to cast a ballot. See ante, at 667–668. It 
only grudgingly accepts—and then apparently forgets—that 
the provision applies to facially neutral laws with discrimina-
tory consequences. Compare ante, at 674, with ante, at 677. 
And it hints that as long as a voting system is suffciently 
“open,” it need not be equally so. See ante, at 669, 671. In 
sum, the majority skates over the strong words Congress 
drafted to accomplish its equally strong purpose: ensuring 
that minority citizens can access the electoral system as eas-
ily as whites.
7 
The majority instead founds its decision on a list of mostly 
made-up factors, at odds with Section 2 itself. To excuse 
this unusual free-form exercise, the majority notes that Sec-
tion 2 authorizes courts to conduct a “totality of circum-
7 In a single sentence, the majority huffs that “nobody disputes” various 
of these “points of law.” Ante, at 674. Excellent! I only wish the ma-
jority would take them to heart, both individually and in combination. 
For example, the majority says it agrees that Section 2 reaches beyond 
denials of voting to any “abridgement.” But then, as I'll later discuss, it 
insists that Section 2 has an interest only in rules that “block or seriously 
hinder voting”—which appears to create a “denial or serious abridge-
ment” standard. Ante, at 669; see infra, at 711–712. Or, for example, the 
majority says it accepts that Section 2 may prohibit facially neutral election 
rules. But the majority takes every opportunity of casting doubt on those 
applications. Each facially neutral rule it mentions is one that it “doubt[s]” 
Congress could have “intended to uproot.” Ante, at 670; see ante, at 659– 
660, 670, 673–674, 677. And it criticizes this dissent for understanding the 
statute (but how could anyone understand it differently?) as focusing on 
the racially “disparate impact” of neutral election rules on the opportunity 
to vote. Ante, at 674. Most fundamentally, the majority refuses to ac-
knowledge how all the “points of law” it professes to agree with work in 
tandem to signal a statute of signifcant power and scope. 
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Kagan, J., dissenting 
stances” analysis. Ante, at 668. But as described above, 
Congress mainly added that language so that Section 2 could 
protect against “the demonstrated ingenuity of state and 
local governments in hobbling minority voting power.” 
De Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1018; see supra, at 705–706. The 
totality inquiry requires courts to explore how ordinary-
seeming laws can interact with local conditions—economic, 
social, historical—to produce race-based voting inequalities. 
That inquiry hardly gives a court the license to devise what-
ever limitations on Section 2's reach it would have liked Con-
gress to enact. But that is the license the majority takes. 
The “important circumstances” it invents all cut in one 
direction—toward limiting liability for race-based voting 
inequalities. Ante, at 669. (Indeed, the majority gratu-
itously dismisses several factors that point the opposite way. 
See ante, at 672–674.) Think of the majority's list as a set 
of extra-textual restrictions on Section 2—methods of coun-
teracting the law Congress actually drafted to achieve the 
purposes Congress thought “important.” The list—not a 
test, the majority hastens to assure us, with delusions of 
modesty—stacks the deck against minority citizens' voting 
rights. Never mind that Congress drafted a statute to pro-
tect those rights—to prohibit any number of schemes the 
majority's non-test test makes it possible to save. 
Start with the majority's frst idea: a “[m]ere inconven-
ience” exception to Section 2. Ante, at 669. Voting, the 
majority says, imposes a set of “usual burdens”: Some time, 
some travel, some rule compliance. Ibid. And all of that is 
beneath the notice of Section 2—even if those burdens fall 
highly unequally on members of different races. See ibid. 
But that categorical exclusion, for seemingly small (or 
“usual” or “[un]serious”) burdens, is nowhere in the provi-
sion's text. To the contrary (and as this Court has recog-
nized before), Section 2 allows no “safe harbor[s]” for elec-
tion rules resulting in disparate voting opportunities. De 
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Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1018; see supra, at 706. The section 
applies to any discriminatory “voting qualifcation,” “prereq-
uisite to voting,” or “standard, practice, or procedure”—even 
the kind creating only (what the majority thinks of as) an 
ordinary burden. And the section cares about any race-
based “abridgments” of voting, not just measures that come 
near to preventing that activity. Congress, recall, was in-
tent on eradicating the “subtle, as well as the obvious,” ways 
of suppressing minority voting. Allen, 393 U. S., at 565; see 
supra, at 703. One of those more subtle ways is to impose 
“inconveniences,” especially a collection of them, differen-
tially affecting members of one race. The certain result— 
because every inconvenience makes voting both somewhat 
more diffcult and somewhat less likely—will be to deter mi-
nority votes. In countenancing such an election system, the 
majority departs from Congress's vision, set down in text, of 
ensuring equal voting opportunity. It chooses equality-lite. 
And what is a “mere inconvenience” or “usual burden” 
anyway? The drafters of the Voting Rights Act under-
stood that “social and historical conditions,” including dispar-
ities in education, wealth, and employment, often affect op-
portunities to vote. Gingles, 478 U. S., at 47; see supra, at 
705–706. What does not prevent one citizen from casting a 
vote might prevent another. How is a judge supposed to 
draw an “inconvenience” line in some reasonable place, tak-
ing those differences into account? Consider a law banning 
the handing out of water to voters. No more than—or not 
even—an inconvenience when lines are short; but what of 
when they are, as in some neighborhoods, hours-long? The 
point here is that judges lack an objective way to decide 
which voting obstacles are “mere” and which are not, for 
all voters at all times. And so Section 2 does not ask the 
question. 
The majority's “multiple ways to vote” factor is similarly 
fawed. Ante, at 671. True enough, a State with three ways 
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to vote (say, on Election Day; early in person; or by mail) 
may be more “open” than a State with only one (on Election 
Day). And some other statute might care about that. But 
Section 2 does not. What it cares about is that a State's 
“political processes” are “equally open” to voters of all races. 
And a State's electoral process is not equally open if, for 
example, the State “only” makes Election Day voting by 
members of one race peculiarly diffcult. The House Report 
on Section 2 addresses that issue. It explains that an elec-
tion system would violate Section 2 if minority citizens had 
a lesser opportunity than white citizens to use absentee bal-
lots. See H. R. Rep., at 31, n. 106. Even if the minority 
citizens could just as easily vote in person, the scheme would 
“result in unequal access to the political process.” Id., at 
31. That is not some piece of contestable legislative history. 
It is the only reading of Section 2 possible, given the stat-
ute's focus on equality. Maybe the majority does not mean 
to contest that proposition; its discussion of this supposed 
factor is short and cryptic. But if the majority does intend 
to excuse so much discrimination, it is wrong. Making one 
method of voting less available to minority citizens than to 
whites necessarily means giving the former “less opportu-
nity than other members of the electorate to participate in 
the political process.” § 10301(b). 
The majority's history-and-commonality factor also pushes 
the inquiry away from what the statute demands. The odd-
est part of the majority's analysis is the idea that “what was 
standard practice when § 2 was amended in 1982 is a relevant 
consideration.” Ante, at 669–670. The 1982 state of the 
world is no part of the Section 2 test. An election rule preva-
lent at that time may make voting harder for minority than for 
white citizens; Section 2 then covers such a rule, as it covers 
any other. And contrary to the majority's unsupported 
speculation, Congress “intended” exactly that. Ante, at 670; 
see H. R. Rep., at 14 (explaining that the Act aimed to eradi-
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cate the “numerous practices and procedures which act as 
continued barriers to registration and voting”). 8 Section 2 
was meant to disrupt the status quo, not to preserve it—to 
eradicate then-current discriminatory practices, not to set 
them in amber. See Bossier, 528 U. S., at 334 (under Section 
2, “[i]f the status quo” abridges the right to vote “relative to 
what the right to vote ought to be , the status quo itself must 
be changed”).
9 And as to election rules common now, the 
majority oversimplifes. Even if those rules are unlikely to 
violate Section 2 everywhere, they may easily do so some-
where. That is because the demographics and political 
geography of States vary widely and Section 2's application 
depends on place-specifc facts. As we have recognized, the 
statute calls for “an intensely local appraisal,” not a count-
up-the-States exercise. Gingles, 478 U. S., at 79; see supra, 
at 706. This case, as I'll later discuss, offers a perfect illus-
tration of how the difference between those two approaches 
can matter. See infra, at 718–729. 
8 The House Report listed some of those offensive, even though facially 
neutral and then-prevalent, practices: “inconvenient location and hours of 
registration, dual registration for county and city elections,” “frequent 
and unnecessary purgings and burdensome registration requirements, and 
failure to provide . . . assistance to illiterates.” H. R. Rep., at 14. So too 
the Senate Report complained of “inconvenient voting and registration 
hours” and “reregistration requirements and purging of voters.” S. Rep., 
at 10, n. 22; see supra, at 705. 
9 Even setting aside Section 2's status-quo-disrupting lean, this Court 
has long rejected—including just last Term—the majority's claim that the 
state of the world at the time of a statute's enactment provides a useful 
“benchmark[ ]” when applying a broadly written law. Ante, at 670. Such 
a law will typically come to encompass applications—even “important” 
ones—that were not “foreseen at the time of enactment.” Bostock v. 
Clayton County, 590 U. S. 644, 676 (2020). To prevent that from happen-
ing—as the majority does today, on the ground that Congress simply must 
have “intended” it—is “to displace the plain meaning of the law in favor 
of something lying beyond it.” Ibid.; see id., at 680 (When a law is “writ-
ten in starkly broad terms,” it is “virtually guaranteed that unexpected 
applications [will] emerge over time”). 
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That leaves only the majority's discussion of state inter-
ests, which is again skewed so as to limit Section 2 liability. 
No doubt that under our precedent, a state interest in 
an election rule “is a legitimate factor to be considered.” 
Houston Lawyers' Assn., 501 U. S., at 426. But the major-
ity wrongly dismisses the need for the closest possible ft 
between means and end—that is, between the terms of the 
rule and the State's asserted interest. Ante, at 673–674. 
In the past, this Court has stated that a discriminatory elec-
tion rule must fall, no matter how weighty the interest 
claimed, if a less biased law would not “signifcantly impair 
[that] interest.” Houston Lawyers' Assn., 501 U. S., at 428; 
see supra, at 706–707, and n. 5. And as the majority con-
cedes, we apply that kind of means-end standard in every 
other context—employment, housing, banking—where the 
law addresses racially discriminatory effects: There, the rule 
must be “strict[ly] necess[ary]” to the interest. Ante, at 673; 
see, e.g., Albemarle Paper Co . v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 425 
(1975) (holding that an employment policy cannot stand if 
another policy, “without a similarly undesirable racial effect, 
would also serve the employer's legitimate interest”). The 
majority argues that “[t]he text of [those] provisions” differs 
from Section 2's. Ante, at 673. But if anything, Section 2 
gives less weight to competing interests: Unlike in most dis-
crimination laws, they enter the inquiry only through the 
provision's reference to the “totality of circumstances”— 
through, then, a statutory backdoor. So the majority falls 
back on the idea that “[d]emanding such a tight ft would 
have the effect of invalidating a great many neutral voting 
regulations.” Ante, at 673; see ante, at 677. But a state 
interest becomes relevant only when a voting rule, even if 
neutral on its face, is found not neutral in operation—only, 
that is, when the rule provides unequal access to the political 
process. Apparently, the majority does not want to “invali-
date [too] many” of those actually discriminatory rules. But 
Congress had a different goal in enacting Section 2. 
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The majority's approach, which would ask only whether 
a discriminatory law “reasonably pursue[s] important state 
interests,” gives election offcials too easy an escape from 
Section 2. Ante, at 677 (emphasis added). Of course pre-
venting voter intimidation is an important state interest. 
And of course preventing election fraud is the same. But 
those interests are also easy to assert groundlessly or pre-
textually in voting discrimination cases. Congress knew 
that when it passed Section 2. Election offcials can all too 
often, the Senate Report noted, “offer a non-racial rational-
ization” for even laws that “purposely discriminate[ ].” 
S. Rep., at 37; see supra, at 703, 706–707, and n. 5. A neces-
sity test flters out those offerings. See, e.g., Albemarle, 422 
U. S., at 425. It thereby prevents election offcials from 
fouting, circumventing, or discounting Section 2's command 
not to discriminate. 
In that regard, the past offers a lesson to the present. 
Throughout American history, election offcials have as-
serted anti-fraud interests in using voter suppression laws. 
Poll taxes, the classic mechanism to keep black people from 
voting, were often justifed as “preserv[ing] the purity of the 
ballot box [and] facilitat[ing] honest elections.” J. Kousser, 
The Shaping of Southern Politics 111, n. 9 (1974). A raft of 
election regulations—including “elaborate registration pro-
cedures” and “early poll closings”—similarly excluded white 
immigrants (Irish, Italians, and so on) from the polls on the 
ground of “prevent[ing] fraud and corruption.” Keyssar 
159; see ibid. (noting that in those times “claims of wide-
spread corruption” were backed “almost entirely” by “anec-
dotes [with] little systematic investigation or evidence”). 
Take even the majority's example of a policy advancing 
an “important state interest”: “the use of private voting 
booths,” in which voters marked their own ballots. 
Ante, at 672. In the majority's high-minded account, that 
innovation—then known as the Australian voting system, for 
the country that introduced it—served entirely to prevent 
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undue infuence. But when adopted, it also prevented many 
illiterate citizens—especially African Americans—from vot-
ing. And indeed, that was partly the point. As an 1892 
Arkansas song went: 
The Australian Ballot works like a charm, 
It makes them think and scratch, 
And when a Negro gets a ballot 
He has certainly got his match. 
Kousser 54. Across the South, the Australian ballot 
decreased voter participation among whites by anywhere 
from 8% to 28% but among African Americans by anywhere 
from 15% to 45%. See id., at 56. Does that mean secret 
ballot laws violate Section 2 today? Of course not. But 
should the majority's own example give us all a bit of pause? 
Yes, it should. It serves as a reminder that States have 
always found it natural to wrap discriminatory policies in 
election-integrity garb. 
Congress enacted Section 2 to prevent those maneuvers 
from working. It knew that States and localities had over 
time enacted measure after measure imposing discrimina-
tory voting burdens. And it knew that governments were 
profcient in justifying those measures on non-racial grounds. 
So Congress called a halt. It enacted a statute that would 
strike down all unnecessary laws, including facially neutral 
ones, that result in members of a racial group having unequal 
access to the political process. 
But the majority is out of sympathy with that measure. 
The majority thinks a statute that would remove those laws 
is not, as Justice Ginsburg once called it, “consequential, 
effcacious, and amply justifed.” Shelby County, 570 U. S., 
at 562 (dissenting opinion). Instead, the majority thinks it 
too “radical” to stomach. Ante, at 674, 678. The majority 
objects to an excessive “transfer of the authority to set vot-
ing rules from the States to the federal courts.” Ante, at 678. 
It even sees that transfer as “[un]democratic.” Ibid. But 
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maybe the majority should pay more attention to the “histor-
ical background” that it insists “does not tell us how to decide 
these cases.” Ante, at 674. That history makes clear the 
incongruity, in interpreting this statute, of the majority's 
paean to state authority—and conversely, its denigration of 
federal responsibility for ensuring non-discriminatory voting 
rules. The Voting Rights Act was meant to replace state 
and local election rules that needlessly make voting harder 
for members of one race than for others. The text of the Act 
perfectly refects that objective. The “democratic” princi-
ple it upholds is not one of States' rights as against fed-
eral courts. The democratic principle it upholds is the right 
of every American, of every race, to have equal access to 
the ballot box. The majority today undermines that princi-
ple as it refuses to apply the terms of the statute. By de-
claring some racially discriminatory burdens inconsequen-
tial, and by refusing to subject asserted state interests to 
serious means-end scrutiny, the majority enables voting 
discrimination. 
III 
Just look at Arizona. Two of that State's policies dispro-
portionately affect minority citizens' opportunity to vote. 
The frst—the out-of-precinct policy—results in Hispanic and 
African American voters' ballots being thrown out at a sta-
tistically higher rate than those of whites. And whatever 
the majority might say about the ordinariness of such a rule, 
Arizona applies it in extra-ordinary fashion: Arizona is the 
national outlier in dealing with out-of-precinct votes, with 
the next-worst offender nowhere in sight. The second 
rule—the ballot-collection ban—makes voting meaningfully 
more diffcult for Native American citizens than for others. 
And nothing about how that ban is applied is “usual” either— 
this time because of how many of the State's Native Ameri-
can citizens need to travel long distances to use the mail. 
Both policies violate Section 2, on a straightforward applica-
tion of its text. Considering the “totality of circumstances,” 
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both “result in” members of some races having “less oppor-
tunity than other members of the electorate to participate 
in the political process and to elect representatives of their 
choice.” § 10301(b). The majority reaches the opposite 
conclusion because it closes its eyes to the facts on the 
ground.
10 
A 
Arizona's out-of-precinct policy requires discarding any 
Election Day ballot cast elsewhere than in a voter's assigned 
precinct. Under the policy, offcials throw out every choice 
in every race—including national or statewide races (e .g., for 
President or Governor) that appear identically on every pre-
cinct's ballot. The question is whether that policy unequally 
affects minority citizens' opportunity to cast a vote. 
Although the majority portrays Arizona's use of the rule 
as “unremarkable,” ante, at 678, the State is in fact a national 
aberration when it comes to discarding out-of-precinct bal-
lots. In 2012, about 35,000 ballots across the country were 
thrown out because they were cast at the wrong precinct. 
See U. S. Election Assistance Commission, 2012 Election Ad-
ministration and Voting Survey 53 (2013). Nearly one in 
three of those discarded votes—10,979—was cast in Arizona. 
Id., at 52. As the Court of Appeals concluded, and the chart 
below indicates, Arizona threw away ballots in that year at 
11 times the rate of the second-place discarder (Washington 
State). Democratic Nat. Committee v. Hobbs, 948 F. 3d 989, 
1001 (CA9 2020); see App. 72. Somehow the majority labels 
that difference “marginal[ ],” ante, at 679, but it is anything 
but. More recently, the number of discarded ballots in the 
State has gotten smaller: Arizona counties have increasingly 
abandoned precinct-based voting (in favor of county-wide 
“vote centers”), so the out-of-precinct rule has fewer votes 
10 Because I would affrm the Court of Appeals' holding that the effects 
of these policies violate Section 2, I need not pass on that court's alterna-
tive holding that the laws were enacted with discriminatory intent. 
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to operate on. And the majority primarily relies on those 
latest (2016) numbers. But across the fve elections at issue 
in this litigation (2008–2016), Arizona threw away far more 
out-of-precinct votes—almost 40,000—than did any other 
State in the country. 
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Votes in such numbers can matter—enough for Section 2 
to apply. The majority obliquely suggests not, comparing 
the smallish number of thrown-out votes (minority and non-
minority alike) to the far larger number of votes cast and 
counted. See ante, at 680. But elections are often fought 
and won at the margins—certainly in Arizona. Consider 
the number of votes separating the two presidential candi-
dates in the most recent election: 10,457. That is fewer 
votes than Arizona discarded under the out-of-precinct policy 
in two of the prior three presidential elections. This Court 
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“that a small group of voters can never infuence the outcome 
of an election.” Chisom, 501 U. S., at 397, n. 24. For that 
reason, we held that even “a small minority” group can claim 
Section 2 protection. See ibid. Similarly here, the out-of-
precinct policy—which discards thousands upon thousands of 
ballots in every election—affects more than suffcient votes 
to implicate Section 2's guarantee of equal electoral 
opportunity. 
And the out-of-precinct policy operates unequally: Ballots 
cast by minorities are more likely to be discarded. In 2016, 
Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans were 
about twice as likely—or said another way, 100% more 
likely—to have their ballots discarded than whites. See 
App. 122. And it is possible to break that down a bit. Sixty 
percent of the voting in Arizona is from Maricopa County. 
There, Hispanics were 110% more likely, African Americans 
86% more likely, and Native Americans 73% more likely to 
have their ballots tossed. See id., at 153. Pima County, the 
next largest county, provides another 15% of the statewide 
vote. There, Hispanics were 148% more likely, African 
Americans 80% more likely, and Native Americans 74% more 
likely to lose their votes. See id., at 157. The record does 
not contain statewide fgures for 2012. But in Maricopa and 
Pima Counties, the percentages were about the same as in 
2016. See id., at 87, 91. Assessing those disparities, the 
plaintiffs' expert found, and the District Court accepted, that 
the discriminatory impact of the out-of-precinct policy was 
statistically signifcant—meaning, again, that it was highly 
unlikely to occur by chance. See Democratic Nat. Commit-
tee v. Reagan, 329 F. Supp. 3d 824, 871 (Ariz. 2018); supra, 
at 704, n. 4. 
The majority is wrong to assert that those statistics are 
“highly misleading.” Ante, at 680. In the majority's view, 
they can be dismissed because the great mass of voters are 
unaffected by the out-of-precinct policy. See ibid. But 
Section 2 is less interested in “absolute terms” (as the major-

722 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
ity calls them) than in relative ones. Ante, at 680; see 
supra, at 703–704. Arizona's policy creates a statistically 
signifcant disparity between minority and white voters: Be-
cause of the policy, members of different racial groups do not 
in fact have an equal likelihood of having their ballots 
counted. Suppose a State decided to throw out 1% of the 
Hispanic vote each election. Presumably, the majority 
would not approve the action just because 99% of the His-
panic vote is unaffected. Nor would the majority say that 
Hispanics in that system have an equal shot of casting an 
effective ballot. Here, the policy is not so overt; but under 
Section 2, that difference does not matter. Because the pol-
icy “results in” statistically signifcant inequality, it impli-
cates Section 2. And the kind of inequality that the policy 
produces is not the kind only a statistician could see. A rule 
that throws out, each and every election, thousands of votes 
cast by minority citizens is a rule that can affect election 
outcomes. If you were a minority vote suppressor in Ari-
zona or elsewhere, you would want that rule in your bag of 
tricks. You would not think it remotely irrelevant. 
And the case against Arizona's policy grows only stronger 
the deeper one digs. The majority fails to conduct the 
“searching practical evaluation” of “past and present reality” 
that Section 2's “totality of circumstances” inquiry demands. 
De Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1018. Had the majority done so, it 
would have discovered why Arizona's out-of-precinct policy 
has such a racially disparate impact on voting opportunity. 
Much of the story has to do with the siting and shifting of 
polling places. Arizona moves polling places at a startling 
rate. Maricopa County (recall, Arizona's largest by far) 
changed 40% or more of polling places before both the 2008 
and the 2012 elections. See 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 858 (noting 
also that changes “continued to occur in 2016”). In 2012 (the 
election with the best data), voters affected by those changes 
had an out-of-precinct voting rate that was 40% higher than 
other voters did. See ibid. And, critically, Maricopa's relo-
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cations hit minority voters harder than others. In 2012, the 
county moved polling stations in African American and His-
panic neighborhoods 30% more often than in white ones. 
See App. 110–111. The odds of those changes leading to 
mistakes increased yet further because the affected areas 
are home to citizens with relatively low education and income 
levels. See id., at 170–171. And even putting relocations 
aside, the siting of polling stations in minority areas caused 
significant out-of-precinct voting. Hispanic and Native 
American voters had to travel further than white voters did 
to their assigned polling places. See id., at 109. And all 
minority voters were disproportionately likely to be assigned 
to polling places other than the ones closest to where they 
lived. See id., at 109, and n. 30, 175–176. Small wonder, 
given such siting decisions, that minority voters found it 
harder to identify and get to their correct precincts. But 
the majority does not address these matters.
11 
Facts also undermine the State's asserted interests, which 
the majority hangs its hat on. A government interest, as 
even the majority recognizes, is “merely one factor to be con-
sidered” in Section 2's totality analysis. Houston Lawyers' 
Assn., 501 U. S., at 427; see ante, at 671. Here, the State 
contends that it needs the out-of-precinct policy to support a 
precinct-based voting system. But 20 other States combine 
precinct-based systems with mechanisms for partially count-
11 The majority's excuse for failing to consider the plaintiffs' evidence on 
Arizona's siting of polling places is that the plaintiffs did not bring a sepa-
rate claim against those practices. See ante, at 682, n. 18. If that sounds 
odd, it is. The majority does not contest that the evidence on polling-
place siting is relevant to the plaintiffs' challenge to the out-of-precinct 
policy. Nor could the majority do so. The siting practices are one of the 
background conditions against which the out-of-precinct policy operates— 
exactly the kind of thing that a totality-of-circumstances analysis demands 
a court take into account. To refuse to think about those practices be-
cause the plaintiffs might have brought a freestanding claim against them 
is to impose an out-of-thin-air pleading requirement that operates to ex-
clude exactly the evidence that most strongly signals a Section 2 violation. 
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ing out-of-precinct ballots (that is, counting the votes for of-
fces like President or Governor). And the District Court 
found that it would be “administratively feasible” for Arizona 
to join that group. 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 860. Arizona— 
echoed by the majority—objects that adopting a partial-
counting approach would decrease compliance with the vote-
in-your-precinct rule (by reducing the penalty for a voter's 
going elsewhere). But there is more than a little paradox 
in that response. We know from the extraordinary number 
of ballots Arizona discards that its current system fails ut-
terly to “induce[ ] compliance.” Ante, at 681; see supra, at 
719–720. Presumably, that is because the system—most 
notably, its placement and shifting of polling places—sows 
an unparalleled level of voter confusion. A State that makes 
compliance with an election rule so unusually hard is in no 
position to claim that its interest in “induc[ing] compliance” 
outweighs the need to remedy the race-based discrimination 
that rule has caused. 
B 
Arizona's law mostly banning third-party ballot collection 
also results in a signifcant race-based disparity in voting 
opportunities. The problem with that law again lies in facts 
nearly unique to Arizona—here, the presence of rural Native 
American communities that lack ready access to mail service. 
Given that circumstance, the Arizona statute discriminates 
in just the way Section 2 proscribes. The majority once 
more comes to a different conclusion only by ignoring the 
local conditions with which Arizona's law interacts. 
The critical facts for evaluating the ballot-collection rule 
have to do with mail service. Most Arizonans vote by mail. 
But many rural Native American voters lack access to mail 
service, to a degree hard for most of us to fathom. Only 
18% of Native voters in rural counties receive home mail 
delivery, compared to 86% of white voters living in those 
counties. See 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 836. And for many or 
most, there is no nearby post offce. Native Americans in 
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rural Arizona “often must travel 45 minutes to 2 hours just 
to get to a mailbox.” 948 F. 3d, at 1006; see 329 F. Supp. 3d, 
at 869 (“Ready access to reliable and secure mail service is 
nonexistent” in some Native American communities). And 
between a quarter to a half of households in these Native 
communities do not have a car. See ibid. So getting bal-
lots by mail and sending them back poses a serious challenge 
for Arizona's rural Native Americans.
12 
For that reason, an unusually high rate of Native Ameri-
cans used to “return their early ballots with the assistance of 
third parties.” Id., at 870.
13 As the District Court found: 
“[F]or many Native Americans living in rural locations,” 
voting “is an activity that requires the active assistance of 
friends and neighbors.” Ibid. So in some Native communi-
ties, third-party collection of ballots—mostly by fellow clan 
members—became “standard practice.” Ibid. And stop-
ping it, as one tribal election offcial testifed, “would be a 
huge devastation.” Ibid.; see Brief for Navajo Nation as 
Amicus Curiae 19–20 (explaining that ballot collection is 
how Navajo voters “have historically handled their mail-in 
ballots”). 
Arizona has always regulated these activities to prevent 
fraud. State law makes it a felony offense for a ballot collec-
tor to fail to deliver a ballot. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16– 
12 Certain Hispanic communities in Arizona confront similar diffculties. 
For example, in the border town of San Luis, which is 98% Hispanic, “[a]l-
most 13,000 residents rely on a post offce located across a major highway” 
for their mail service. 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 869. The median income in 
San Luis is $22,000, so “many people [do] not own[ ] cars”—making it “dif-
fcult” to “receiv[e] and send[ ] mail.” Ibid. 
13 The majority faults the plaintiffs for failing to provide “concrete” sta-
tistical evidence on this point. See ante, at 684. But no evidence of that 
kind exists: Arizona has never compiled data on third-party ballot collec-
tion. And the witness testimony the plaintiffs offered in its stead allowed 
the District Court to conclude that minority voters, and especially Native 
Americans, disproportionately needed third-party assistance to vote. See 
329 F. Supp. 3d, at 869–870. 
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1005 (Cum. Supp. 2020). It is also a felony for a ballot collec-
tor to tamper with a ballot in any manner. See ibid. And 
as the District Court found, “tamper evident envelopes and 
a rigorous voter signature verifcation procedure” protect 
against any such attempts. 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 854. For 
those reasons and others, no fraud involving ballot collection 
has ever come to light in the State. Id., at 852. 
Still, Arizona enacted—with full knowledge of the 
likely discriminatory consequences—the near-blanket ballot-
collection ban challenged here. The frst version of the 
law—much less stringent than the current one—passed the 
Arizona Legislature in 2011. But the Department of Jus-
tice, in its Section 5 review, expressed skepticism about the 
statute's compliance with the Voting Rights Act, and the leg-
islature decided to repeal the law rather than see it blocked 
(and thereby incur statutory penalties). See 329 F. Supp. 
3d, at 880; 52 U. S. C. § 10303(a)(1)(E) (providing that if a 
state law fails Section 5 review, the State may not escape 
the preclearance process for another 10 years). Then, this 
Court decided Shelby County . With Section 5 gone, the 
State Legislature felt free to proceed with a new ballot-
collection ban, despite the potentially discriminatory effects 
that the preclearance process had revealed. The enacted 
law contains limited exceptions for family members and care-
givers. But it includes no similar exceptions for clan mem-
bers or others with Native kinship ties. They and anyone 
else who picks up a neighbor's ballot and takes it to a post 
offce, or delivers it to an election site, is punishable as a 
felon. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 16–1005(H). 
Put all of that together, and Arizona's ballot-collection ban 
violates Section 2. The ban interacts with conditions on the 
ground—most crucially, disparate access to mail service—to 
create unequal voting opportunities for Native Americans. 
Recall that only 18% of rural Native Americans in the State 
have home delivery; that travel times of an hour or more to 
the nearest post offce are common; that many members of

Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 727 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
the community do not have cars. See supra, at 724–725. 
Given those facts, the law prevents many Native Americans 
from making effective use of one of the principal means of 
voting in Arizona.14 What is an inconsequential burden for 
others is for these citizens a severe hardship. And the State 
has shown no need for the law to go so far. Arizona, as 
noted above, already has statutes in place to deter fraudulent 
collection practices. See supra, at 725–726. Those laws 
give every sign of working. Arizona has not offered any 
evidence of fraud in ballot collection, or even an account of a 
harm threatening to happen. See 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 852 
(“[T]here has never been a case of voter fraud associated 
with ballot collection charged in Arizona”). And anyway, 
Arizona did not have to entirely forgo a ballot-collection re-
striction to comply with Section 2. It could, for example, 
have added an exception to the statute for Native clan or 
kinship ties, to accommodate the special, “intensely local” 
situation of the rural Native American community. Gingles, 
478 U. S., at 79. That Arizona did not do so shows, at best, 
selective indifference to the voting opportunities of its Na-
tive American citizens. 
The majority's opinion fails to acknowledge any of these 
facts. It quotes extensively from the District Court's fnd-
ing that the ballot-collection ban does not interfere with the 
voting opportunities of minority groups generally. See 
ante, at 684, n. 19. But it never addresses the court's sepa-
14 To make matters worse, in-person voting does not provide a feasible 
alternative for many rural Native voters. Given the low population den-
sity on Arizona's reservations, the distance to an assigned polling place— 
like that to a post offce—is usually long. Again, many Native citizens do 
not own cars. And the State's polling-place siting practices cause some 
voters to go to the wrong precincts. Respecting the last factor, the Dis-
trict Court found that because Navajo voters “lack standard addresses[,] 
their precinct assignments” are “based upon guesswork.” Democratic 
Nat. Committee v. Reagan, 329 F. Supp. 3d 824, 873 (Ariz. 2018). As a 
result, there is frequent “confusion about the voter's correct polling 
place.” Ibid. 
Page Proof Pending Publication

Page Proof Pending Publication
728 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
rate fnding that the ban poses a unique burden for Native 
Americans. See supra, at 724–726. Except in a pair of 
footnotes responding to this dissent, the term “Native Amer-
ican” appears once (count it, once) in the majority's fve-page 
discussion of Arizona's ballot-collection ban. So of course 
that community's strikingly limited access to mail service is 
not addressed.
15 In the majority's alternate world, the 
collection ban is just a “usual burden[ ] of voting” for every-
one. Ante, at 683. And in that world, “[f]raud is a real 
risk” of ballot collection—as to every community, in every 
circumstance—just because the State in litigation asserts 
that it is. Ante, at 686. The State need not even show that 
the discriminatory rule it enacted is necessary to prevent 
the fraud it purports to fear. So the State has no duty to 
substitute a non-discriminatory rule that would adequately 
15 In one of those footnotes, the majority defends its omission by saying 
that “no individual [Native American] voter testifed that [the collection 
ban] would make it signifcantly more diffcult for him or her to vote.” 
Ante, at 686–687, n. 21. But as stated above, the District Court found, 
based on the testimony of “lawmakers, elections offcials[,] community ad-
vocates,” and tribal representatives, that the ban would have that effect 
for many Native American voters. 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 868; see id., at 870 
(“[F]or many Native Americans living in rural locations,” voting “is an 
activity that requires the active assistance of friends and neighbors”); 
supra, at 724–726. The idea that the claim here fails because the plain-
tiffs did not produce less meaningful evidence (a single person's experi-
ence) does not meet the straight-face standard. And the majority's re-
maining argument is, if anything, more eccentric. Here, the majority 
assures us that the Postal Service has a “statutory obligation[ ]” to provide 
“effective and regular postal services to rural areas.” Ante, at 687, n. 21. 
But the record shows what the record shows—once again, in the Court of 
Appeals' words, that Native Americans in rural Arizona “often must 
travel 45 minutes to 2 hours just to get to a mailbox.” Democratic Nat. 
Committee v. Hobbs, 948 F. 3d 989, 1006 (CA9 2020). That kind of back-
ground circumstance is central to Section 2's totality-of-circumstances 
analysis—and here produces a signifcant racial disparity in the opportu-
nity to vote. The majority's argument to the contrary is no better than 
if it condoned a literacy test on the ground that a State had long had a 
statutory obligation to teach all its citizens to read and write.

Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 729 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
serve its professed goal. Like the rest of today's opinion, 
the majority's treatment of the collection ban thus fouts 
what Section 2 commands: the eradication of election rules 
resulting in unequal opportunities for minority voters. 
IV 
Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act to address a deep 
fault of our democracy—the historical and continuing at-
tempt to withhold from a race of citizens their fair share 
of infuence on the political process. For a century, African 
Americans had struggled and sacrifced to wrest their voting 
rights from a resistant Nation. The statute they and their 
allies at long last attained made a promise to all Americans. 
From then on, Congress demanded, the political process 
would be equally open to every citizen, regardless of race. 
One does not hear much in the majority opinion about that 
promise. One does not hear much about what brought Con-
gress to enact the Voting Rights Act, what Congress hoped 
for it to achieve, and what obstacles to that vision remain 
today. One would never guess that the Act is, as the Presi-
dent who signed it wrote, “monumental.” Johnson Papers 
841. For all the opinion reveals, the majority might be con-
sidering any old piece of legislation—say, the Lanham Act 
or ERISA. 
But then, at least, the majority should treat the Voting 
Rights Act as if it were ordinary legislation. The Court al-
ways says that it must interpret a statute according to its 
text—that it has no warrant to override congressional 
choices. But the majority today fouts those choices with 
abandon. The language of Section 2 is as broad as broad 
can be. It applies to any policy that “results in” disparate 
voting opportunities for minority citizens. It prohibits, 
without any need to show bad motive, even facially neutral 
laws that make voting harder for members of one race than 
of another, given their differing life circumstances. That is 
the expansive statute Congress wrote, and that our prior 
Page Proof Pending Publication

730 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
Kagan, J., dissenting 
decisions have recognized. But the majority today lessens 
the law—cuts Section 2 down to its own preferred size. The 
majority creates a set of extra-textual exceptions and consid-
erations to sap the Act's strength, and to save laws like Ari-
zona's. No matter what Congress wanted, the majority has 
other ideas. 
This Court has no right to remake Section 2. Maybe 
some think that vote suppression is a relic of history—and 
so the need for a potent Section 2 has come and gone. Cf. 
Shelby County , 570 U. S., at 547 (“[T]hings have changed 
dramatically”). But Congress gets to make that call. Be-
cause it has not done so, this Court's duty is to apply the law 
as it is written. The law that confronted one of this coun-
try's most enduring wrongs; pledged to give every American, 
of every race, an equal chance to participate in our democ-
racy; and now stands as the crucial tool to achieve that goal. 
That law, of all laws, deserves the sweep and power Con-
gress gave it. That law, of all laws, should not be diminished 
by this Court. 
Page Proof Pending Publication

Retrieval chunks

• #1

  PRELIMINARY PRINT Volume 594 U. S. Part 2 Pages 647–730 OFFICIAL REPORTS OF THE SUPREME COURT July 1, 2021 REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions Page Proof Pending Publication NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notif…

• #2

  Amendment. The District Court rejected all of the plaintiffs' claims. The court found that the out-of-precinct policy had no “meaningfully disparate impact” on minority voters' opportunities to elect representa- tives of their choice. Turning to the ballot-collection restriction, the court found that it was unlike…

• #3

  Court took its cue from § 2's legislative history. The Court's many sub- sequent vote-dilution cases have followed the path Gingles charted. Because the Court here considers for the frst time how § 2 applies to generally applicable time, place, or manner voting rules, it is appro- priate to take a fresh look at th…

• #4

  must tolerate the “usual burdens of voting.” Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 553 U. S. 181, 198. Mere inconvenience is insuff- cient. P. 669. (B) The degree to which a voting rule departs from what was standard practice when § 2 was amended in 1982 is a relevant consider- ation. The burdens associated wit…

• #5

  vance in cases involving neutral time, place, and manner rules is to show that minority group members suffered discrimination in the past and that effects of that discrimination persist. The disparate-impact model employed in Title VII and Fair Housing Act cases is not useful here. Pp. 672–674. (4) Section 2(b) d…

• #6

  lot. For non-minority voters, the rate was around 0.5%. A procedure that appears to work for 98% or more of voters to whom it applies— minority and non-minority alike—is unlikely to render a system un- equally open. Appropriate weight must be given to the important state interests furthered by precinct-based voti…

• #7

  tion. Further, a State may take action to prevent election fraud with- out waiting for it to occur within its own borders. Pp. 683–687. (d) HB 2023 was not enacted with a discriminatory purpose, as the District Court found. Appellate review of that conclusion is for clear error. Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U. S…

• #8

  Solicitor General, William S. Consovoy, and Tyler R. Green. Jessica Ring Amunson argued the cause for respondent Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. With her on the brief in both cases was Sam Hirsch. Bruce V. Spiva argued the cause for respondent DNC et al. With him on the brief in both cases were Marc E. El…

• #9

  for Gov. Douglas A. Ducey et al. by Dominic E. Draye and Andrew G. Pappas; for Scott Fitzgerald et al. by Jessie Augustyn; for Gov. Kristi Noem by Gene C. Schaerr , Erik S. Jaffe, Hannah C. Smith, and Kathryn E. Tarbert; and for Helen Purcell by David J. Cantelme and D. Aaron Brown. J. Christian Adams fled a brie…

• #10

  cal Elections Scholars by Maxwell V. Pritt; for Fair Fight Action, Inc., et al. by W. Scott Bales, Roopali H. Desai, D. Andrew Gaona, and Allegra J. Lawrence; for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights et al. by Debo P . Adegbile, Arpit K. Garg, LaShawn Warren, and Michael Zubrensky; for Mi Familia Vo…

• #11

  District Court's factual fnding on the issue of legislative intent. I A Congress enacted the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 437, as amended, 52 U. S. C. § 10301 et seq., in an effort to achieve at long last what the Fifteenth Amendment had sought to bring about 95 years earlier: an end to the den…

• #12

  voting. See §§ 4(a), (c), 79 Stat. 438–439; § 6, 84 Stat. 315; § 102, 89 Stat. 400, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §§ 10303(a), (c), 10501 (prohibiting the denial of the right to vote in any elec- tion for failure to pass a test demonstrating literacy, educa- tional achievement or knowledge of any particular subject, or…

• #13

  dilution plaintiff must prove, and the words the Court chose would later assume great importance in VRA § 2 matters. According to White, a vote-dilution plaintiff had to show that “the political processes leading to nomination and election were not equally open to participation by the group in ques- tion—that its…

• #14

  Court had said in White. See S. Rep. No. 97–417, pp. 2, 15– 16, 27. The bill that was initially passed by the House of Representatives included what is now § 2(a). In place of the phrase “to deny or abridge the right . . . to vote on account of race or color,” the amendment substituted “in a manner which results …

• #15

  vote, and none of these concerned the equal application of a facially neutral rule specifying the time, place, or manner of Page Proof Pending Publication 660 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE Opinion of the Court voting. See id., at 30, and n. 119. 4 These sparse results were presumably good news. They…

• #16

  6 See Brief for Sen. Ted Cruz et al. as Amici Curiae 22–24 (describing § 2 challenges to laws regulating absentee voting, precinct voting, early voting periods, voter identifcation (ID), election observer zones, same- Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 661 …

• #17

  sional ballot. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16–584 (Cum. Supp. 2020). That ballot is later counted if the voter's address is determined to be within the precinct. See ibid. But if it turns out that the voter cast a ballot at the wrong precinct, that vote is not counted. See § 16–584(E); App. 37–41 (elec- tion procedur…

• #18

  process.” Ibid. The court also found that the plaintiffs had not proved that the policy “causes minorities to show up to vote at the wrong precinct at rates higher than their non- minority counterparts,” id., at 873, and the court noted that the plaintiffs had not even challenged “the manner in which Arizona coun…

• #19

  individual legislators and proponents were motivated in part by partisan interests.” Id., at 882. But it distinguished be- tween partisan and racial motives, while recognizing that “ra- cially polarized voting can sometimes blur the lines.” Ibid. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit affrmed, but an en banc court …

• #20

  needed to entertain an appeal of that issue is one party with standing, see Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 591 U. S. 657, 674, n. 6 (2020), and we are satisfed that Attorney General Brnovich fts the bill. The State of Arizona intervened below, see App. 834; there is “[n]o d…

• #21

  tected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect repre- sentatives of their choice. The extent to which mem- bers of a protected class have been elected to offce in the State or political subdivision is one…

• #22

  and the most relevant defnition of the term “open,” as used in § 2(b), is “without restrictions as to who may participate,” Page Proof Pending Publication 668 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE Opinion of the Court Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1008 (J. Stein ed. 1966), or “requiring no…

• #23

  voting rule is highly relevant. The concepts of “open[ness]” and “opportunity” connote the absence of obstacles and bur- dens that block or seriously hinder voting, and therefore the size of the burden imposed by a voting rule is important. After all, every voting rule imposes a burden of some sort. Voting takes …

• #24

  challenged rule are suffcient to prevent voting from being equally “open” or furnishing an equal “opportunity” to vote in the sense meant by § 2. Therefore, it is relevant that in 1982 States typically required nearly all voters to cast their ballots in person on election day and allowed only narrow and tightly d…

• #25

  respect to employment, wealth, and education, even neutral regulations, no matter how crafted, may well result in some predictable disparities in rates of voting and noncompliance with voting rules. But the mere fact there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or …

• #26

  While the factors set out above are important, others con- sidered by some lower courts are less helpful in a case like the ones at hand. First, it is important to keep in mind that the Gingles or “Senate” factors grew out of and were de- signed for use in vote-dilution cases. Some of those factors are plainly in…

• #27

  why Congress would conform rules regulating voting to those regulating employment and housing. For example, we think it inappropriate to read § 2 to impose a strict “necessity requirement” that would force States to demonstrate that their legitimate interests can be accomplished only by means of the voting regula…

• #28

  rules, practices, and procedures; that an “abridgement” of the right to vote under § 2 does not require outright denial of the right; that § 2 does not demand proof of discriminatory purpose; and that a “facially neutral” law or practice may violate that provision. See post, at 701–709. Only after this extended e…

• #29

  Brooks, 469 U. S. 1002, 1010 (1984) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“The com- promise bill retained the `results' language but also incorporated language directly from this Court's opinion in White v. Regester”). And while the proviso on proportional representation may not apply as directly in this suit, it is still …

• #30

  empted the electoral scheme from § 2 scrutiny altogether. Id., at 426. We disagreed, holding that the State's interest was instead “a legitimate factor to be considered by courts among the `totality of circumstances' in determining whether a § 2 violation has occurred.” Ibid. To illustrate why an “automati[c]” exe…

• #31

  interpretation of § 2, any “statistically signifcant” dispar- ity—wherever that is in the statute—may be enough to take down even facially neutral voting rules with long pedigrees that reasonably pursue important state interests. Post, at 704, n. 4, 708–709, 721. 17 gimes. Post, at 707, n. 5, 715. Perhaps that i…

• #32

  identify one's own polling place and then travel there to vote does not exceed the “usual burdens of voting.” Crawford, 553 U. S., at 198 (opinion of Stevens, J.) (noting the same about making a trip to the department of motor vehicles). On the contrary, these tasks are quintessential examples of the usual burden…

• #33

  signed polling place by calling the offce of their respective county recorder. Ibid. And on election day, poll workers in at least some counties are trained to redirect voters who arrive at the wrong precinct. Ibid., see Tr. 1559, 1586; Tr. Exh. 370 (Pima County Elections Inspectors Handbook). The burdens of iden…

• #34

  ture, but its use of statistics was highly misleading for rea- sons that were well explained by Judge Easterbrook in a § 2 case involving voter IDs. As he put it, a distorted picture can be created by dividing one percentage by another. Frank, 768 F. 3d, at 752, n. 3. He gave this example: “If 99.9% of whites had…

• #35

  at 878. It is also signifcant that precinct-based voting has a long pedigree in the United States. See 948 F. 3d, at 1062– 1063 (Bybee, J., dissenting) (citing J. Harris, Election Admin- istration in the United States 206–207 (1934)). And the pol- icy of not counting out-of-precinct ballots is widespread. Page Pr…

• #36

  thus left with the unenviable task of explaining how something like a 0.5% disparity in discarded ballots between minority and non-minority groups suffces to render Arizona's political processes not equally open to partici- Page Proof Pending Publication Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 683 Opinion of the Court B …

• #37

  Opinion of the Court disadvantaged communities and that minorities in Arizona— especially Native Americans—are disproportionately dis- advantaged. 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 868, 870. But from that evidence the District Court could conclude only that prior to HB 2023's enactment, “minorities generically were more likel…

• #38

  [get-out-the-vote] strategy in mostly low-effcacy minority communities, though the Court cannot say how often voters used ballot collection, nor can it measure the degree or signifcance of any disparities in its usage” (emphasis added)). Page Proof Pending Publication Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 685 Opinion of…

• #39

  was no evidence that fraud in connection with early ballots had occurred in Arizona. See id., at 1045–1046. But pre- vention of fraud is not the only legitimate interest served by restrictions on ballot collection. As the Carter-Baker Com- mission recognized, third-party ballot collection can lead to pressure and…

• #40

  Opinion of the Court As with the out-of-precinct policy, the modest evidence of racially disparate burdens caused by HB 2023, in light of the State's justifcations, leads us to the conclusion that the law does not violate § 2 of the VRA. V We also granted certiorari to review whether the Court of Appeals erred …

• #41

  enactment followed increased use of ballot collection as a Democratic get-out-the-vote strategy and came “on the heels of several prior efforts to restrict ballot collection, some of which were spearheaded by former Arizona State Senator Don Shooter.” Id., at 879. Shooter's own election in 2010 had been close and…

• #42

  the former look like the latter, but it carefully distinguished between the two. See 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 879, 882. And while the District Court recognized that the “racially- tinged” video helped spur the debate about ballot collection, it found no evidence that the legislature as a whole was im- bued with racial…

• #43

  60, and n. 8 (1980) (plurality opinion). Lower courts have treated this as an open question. E. g., Washington v. Finlay, 664 F. 2d 913, 926 (CA4 1981). Because no party argues that the plaintiffs lack a cause of action here, and because the existence (or not) of a cause of action does not go to a court's subject…

• #44

  (1965). He was right about how the Act's drafting refected its aim. “The end of discrimination in voting” is a far- reaching goal. And the Voting Rights Act's text is just as far-reaching. A later amendment, adding the provision at issue here, became necessary when this Court construed the statute too narrowly. A…

• #45

  democratic practice not so much. The Declaration of In- dependence made an awe-inspiring promise: to institute a government “deriving [its] just powers from the consent of the governed.” But for most of the Nation's frst century, that pledge ran to white men only. The earliest state elec- Page Proof Pending Publi…

• #46

  Presidents 1789–1897, pp. 55–56 (J. Richardson ed. 1898). Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication 694 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE Kagan, J., dissenting Momentous as the Fifteenth Amendment was, celebration of its achievements soon proved premature. The Amend- ment's guarante…

• #47

  nounced a march from Selma to Montgomery. On March 7, some 600 protesters, led by future Congressman John Lewis, sought to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. State troopers in riot gear responded brutally: “Turning their nightsticks horizontally, they rushed into the crowd, knocking people over like bowling pins.” G…

• #48

  operating for decades at full strength, stopped many of those measures too. See, e.g., Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S. 380 (1991); Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544 (1969). As a famed dissent assessed the situation about a half- century after the statute's enactment: The Voting Rights Act had become “one…

• #49

  of voter suppression—and to block any that would have dis- criminatory effects. See 52 U. S. C. §§ 10304(a)–(b). In that way, the Act would prevent the use of new, more nuanced methods to restrict the voting opportunities of non-white citizens. And for decades, Section 5 operated as intended. Be- tween 1965 and …

• #50

  changed dramatically,” the Court reiterated, id., at 547: The statute that was once a necessity had become an imposition. But how did the majority know there was nothing more for Section 5 to do—that the (undoubted) changes in the country went so far as to make the provision unnecessary? It didn't, as Justice Gin…

• #51

  ones, and that a minority voter is six times more likely to wait more than an hour). 2 2 Although causation is hard to establish defnitively, those post-Shelby County changes appear to have reduced minority participation in the next election cycle. The most comprehensive study available found that in areas freed…

• #52

  Court's hand. Congress never meant for Section 2 to bear all of the weight of the Act's commitments. That provision looks to courts, not to the Executive Branch, to restrain dis- criminatory voting practices. And litigation is an after-the- fact remedy, incapable of providing relief until an election— usually, mo…

• #53

  the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the politi- 702 BRNO VICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE Kagan, J., dissenting cal processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to par- ticipation by members of [a given race] in that [those] members have …

• #54

  Bossier, 528 U. S., at 359 (Souter, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). It means to “curtail,” rather than take away, the voting right. American Heritage Dictionary 4 (1969). The “results in” language, connecting the covered voting rules to the prohibited voting abridgment, tells courts that they are…

• #55

  others, to cast ballots. When Congress amended Section 2, the word “opportunity” meant what it also does today: “a favorable or advantageous combination of circumstances” for some action. See American Heritage Dictionary, at 922. In using that word, Congress made clear that the Voting Rights Act does not demand e…

• #56

  than whites, and § 2 would therefore be violated.” Ibid. (emphasis deleted). In enacting Section 2, Congress docu- mented many similar (if less extreme) facially neutral rules—“registration requirements,” “voting and registration hours,” voter “purging” policies, and so forth—that create disparities in voting opp…

• #57

  sence of a § 2 claim,” we have said, is that an election law “in- teracts with social and historical conditions” in a particular place to cause race-based inequality in voting opportunity. Gingles, 478 U. S., at 47 (majority opinion). That interaction is what the totality inquiry is mostly designed to discover. A…

• #58

  ing “if [the] impairment of a minority group's voting strength could be remedied without signifcantly impairing the State's interest in electing judges on a district-wide basis”). In posing that question, the Court did what Congress wanted, because absent a necessity test, States could too easily get away with off…

• #59

  6 Contra the majority, see ante, at 658–659, 674–675, and n. 14, the House-Senate compromise reached in amending Section 2 has nothing to do with the law relevant here. The majority is hazy about the content of this compromise for a reason: It was about proportional representation. As then-Justice Rehnquist explai…

• #60

  democracy. The provision tells courts—however “radical” the majority might fnd the idea, ante, at 678—to eliminate facially neutral (as well as targeted) electoral rules that unnecessarily create inequalities of access to the political process. That is the very project of the statute, as con- ceived and as writte…

• #61

  this unusual free-form exercise, the majority notes that Sec- tion 2 authorizes courts to conduct a “totality of circum- 7 In a single sentence, the majority huffs that “nobody disputes” various of these “points of law.” Ante, at 674. Excellent! I only wish the ma- jority would take them to heart, both individuall…

• #62

  See ante, at 672–674.) Think of the majority's list as a set of extra-textual restrictions on Section 2—methods of coun- teracting the law Congress actually drafted to achieve the purposes Congress thought “important.” The list—not a test, the majority hastens to assure us, with delusions of modesty—stacks the de…

• #63

  ities in education, wealth, and employment, often affect op- portunities to vote. Gingles, 478 U. S., at 47; see supra, at 705–706. What does not prevent one citizen from casting a vote might prevent another. How is a judge supposed to draw an “inconvenience” line in some reasonable place, tak- ing those differen…

• #64

  est part of the majority's analysis is the idea that “what was standard practice when § 2 was amended in 1982 is a relevant consideration.” Ante, at 669–670. The 1982 state of the world is no part of the Section 2 test. An election rule preva- lent at that time may make voting harder for minority than for white c…

• #65

  state of the world at the time of a statute's enactment provides a useful “benchmark[ ]” when applying a broadly written law. Ante, at 670. Such a law will typically come to encompass applications—even “important” ones—that were not “foreseen at the time of enactment.” Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U. S. 644, 676…

• #66

  have the effect of invalidating a great many neutral voting regulations.” Ante, at 673; see ante, at 677. But a state interest becomes relevant only when a voting rule, even if neutral on its face, is found not neutral in operation—only, that is, when the rule provides unequal access to the political process. App…

• #67

  booths,” in which voters marked their own ballots. Ante, at 672. In the majority's high-minded account, that innovation—then known as the Australian voting system, for the country that introduced it—served entirely to prevent Page Proof Pending Publication Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 717 Kagan, J., dissenting …

• #68

  incongruity, in interpreting this statute, of the majority's paean to state authority—and conversely, its denigration of federal responsibility for ensuring non-discriminatory voting rules. The Voting Rights Act was meant to replace state and local election rules that needlessly make voting harder for members of …

• #69

  in every race—including national or statewide races (e .g., for President or Governor) that appear identically on every pre- cinct's ballot. The question is whether that policy unequally affects minority citizens' opportunity to cast a vote. Although the majority portrays Arizona's use of the rule as “unremarkabl…

• #70

  in two of the prior three presidential elections. This Court previously rejected the idea—the “erroneous assumption”— Page Proof Pending Publication Cite as: 594 U. S. 647 (2021) 721 Kagan, J., dissenting “that a small group of voters can never infuence the outcome of an election.” Chisom, 501 U. S., at 397, n. …

• #71

  signifcant disparity between minority and white voters: Be- cause of the policy, members of different racial groups do not in fact have an equal likelihood of having their ballots counted. Suppose a State decided to throw out 1% of the Hispanic vote each election. Presumably, the majority would not approve the ac…

• #72

  are home to citizens with relatively low education and income levels. See id., at 170–171. And even putting relocations aside, the siting of polling stations in minority areas caused significant out-of-precinct voting. Hispanic and Native American voters had to travel further than white voters did to their assign…

• #73

  echoed by the majority—objects that adopting a partial- counting approach would decrease compliance with the vote- in-your-precinct rule (by reducing the penalty for a voter's going elsewhere). But there is more than a little paradox in that response. We know from the extraordinary number of ballots Arizona disca…

• #74

  third parties.” Id., at 870. 13 As the District Court found: “[F]or many Native Americans living in rural locations,” voting “is an activity that requires the active assistance of friends and neighbors.” Ibid. So in some Native communi- ties, third-party collection of ballots—mostly by fellow clan members—became…

• #75

  Arizona Legislature in 2011. But the Department of Jus- tice, in its Section 5 review, expressed skepticism about the statute's compliance with the Voting Rights Act, and the leg- islature decided to repeal the law rather than see it blocked (and thereby incur statutory penalties). See 329 F. Supp. 3d, at 880; 52…

• #76

  have added an exception to the statute for Native clan or kinship ties, to accommodate the special, “intensely local” situation of the rural Native American community. Gingles, 478 U. S., at 79. That Arizona did not do so shows, at best, selective indifference to the voting opportunities of its Na- tive American …

• #77

  that “no individual [Native American] voter testifed that [the collection ban] would make it signifcantly more diffcult for him or her to vote.” Ante, at 686–687, n. 21. But as stated above, the District Court found, based on the testimony of “lawmakers, elections offcials[,] community ad- vocates,” and tribal rep…

• #78

  would be equally open to every citizen, regardless of race. One does not hear much in the majority opinion about that promise. One does not hear much about what brought Con- gress to enact the Voting Rights Act, what Congress hoped for it to achieve, and what obstacles to that vision remain today. One would never…