USSC gets it right on Ohio voter purge case

Supreme Court Upholds Ohio’s Purge of Voting Rolls

The court ruled that states may kick people off the rolls if they skip a few elections and fail to respond to a notice from election officials. The vote was 5 to 4, with the more conservative justices in the majority.

On one level, the decision sought to make sense of tangled statutory language. But it was also a vivid reminder that measures placing obstacles between people seeking to vote and their ability to cast ballots — including cutbacks on early voting, elimination of same-day registration and tough voter ID laws — present dueling visions of democracy.

Gotta love the fact that your publications like the NY Times seem to see everything "legal" through the eyes of "politics". The reality here is that the USSC was not ruling on which version of democracy we should live in, but rather (gasp) they were ruling on whether the law itself was constitutional.

This didn't stop Sotomayer from writing a "scathing" dissent which (of course) was all about race.

"Our democracy rests on the ability of all individuals, regardless of race, income or status, to exercise their right to vote."

"African-American-majority neighborhoods in downtown Cincinnati had 10% of their voters removed due to inactivity since 2012" as compared to "only 4% of voters in a suburban, majority-white neighborhood."

Of course, it would make sense that more people move in downtown areas which are dominated by rental apartments, versus suburban areas where home ownership is the norm. I am guessing that more white people were removed from downtown Cincinnati than they were in the suburbs, while less black people were removed from the suburbs than were removed in the downtown areas.

Justice Alito correctly calls out Sotomayer:

"Justice Sotomayor's dissent says nothing about what is relevant in this case"

And the dissents in general:

The dissents have a policy disagreement, not just with Ohio, but with Congress. But this case presents a question of statutory interpretation, not a question of policy. We have no authority to second-guess Congress or to decide whether Ohio’s Supplemental Process is the ideal method for keeping its voting rolls up to date. The only question before us is whether it violates federal law. It does not.

Yeah, Sotomayor's dissent had nothing to do with the law, the constitution, or any actual legal precedent. It's strictly her own personal opinion about what she sees as "right". With all due respect, we elect legislators to write and implement the laws that deal with what is wrong and what is right. Our Justice branch of the government is to interpret and rule on the law and the constitution. If Sotomayor wants to push what she feels is "right" then she can resign from the bench and run for the Senate or the House.