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David
Marvin

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Equal voting rights for all.

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Every state has a law creating campaign-free buffer zones outside of polling places - laws the Supreme Court has long upheld.

On Wednesday, the justices tackled similar and even stricter laws that bar "political" apparel inside polling places.

The court did not indicate which way it was leaning in questioning Wednesday. Lawyers on both sides of the arguments were pressed hard.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, perhaps the court's most vociferous advocate for free speech, repeatedly noted the necessity for decorum and solemnity in the voting place. Where do we draw the line as to what is permissible? Kennedy asked.

J. David Breemer, the attorney representing Andrew Cilek and the Minnesota Voters Alliance, said he didn't know. The problem with the Minnesota statute, Breemer argued, is it seeks to silence so much speech.

The statute in question says the following:

"A person may not display campaign material, post signs, ask, solicit, or in any manner try to induce or persuade a voter within a polling place or within 100 feet of the building in which a polling place is situated, or anywhere on the public property on which a polling place is situated, on primary or election day to vote for or refrain from voting for a candidate or ballot question. A person may not provide political badges, political buttons, or other political insignia to be worn at or about the polling place on the day of a primary or election. A political badge, political button, or other political insignia may not be worn at or about the polling place on primary or election day."

Cilek wore a Tea Party T-shirt and a "Please I.D. Me" button to vote. He was asked to cover up the tee-shirt and take off the button. After leaving the polling place twice without voting, he came back with his lawyer and was allowed to vote. But his name and address were taken down, because the law provides for up to a $300 fine for violating the ban on political apparel. The fine, though, has never been levied and was not in this case, either, according to the state.

But Cilek and the Minnesota Voters Alliance sued, claiming his constitutional free speech rights had been violated.

"I think the fundamental principle is that I had a right to wear that T-shirt," Cilek maintains.

The Supreme Court wasn't so sure.

Chief Justice John Roberts, for example, like Kennedy, spoke of the necessity for decorum at polling places and warned of a concern about coordination, where a group of people decide to wear the same buttons or shirts, the result being "subtle psychological pressure" on other voters.

Maybe after a sharp, bitter campaign, people should be able to vote "in peace and quiet without being bombarded" by all the "Sturm und Drang" of the election, Roberts said.

But the Chief Justice also seemed to suggest that the state's statute was too broad, when confronting arguments from Daniel Rogan, who was defending the statute for the state.

Rogan argued that just as the Supreme Court itself bans demonstrators, banners, and signs on the plaza in front of the court, relegating such speech to the public sidewalk, states can limit speech at polling places.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg questioned how far this principle should go. Would a "Me Too" or ACLU pin be banned at Minnesota's polling places? Justice Elena Kagan asked about "Make America Great Again" or "Resist."

Rogan said the limitation is on anything pertaining to electoral choices at the polling place. For example, if gay rights is somehow on the ballot, then someone wouldn't be allowed to wear a rainbow flag. If gun restrictions were, then someone couldn't wear an NRA button.

Justice Samuel Alito, who seemed the most overtly hostile toward the law, went through a litany of hypotheticals on everything from "Parkland Strong" (yes, said Rogan, that would be allowed) to an NRA T-shirt (no, Rogan said).

What about T-shirts spelling out the First or Second Amendments, "All Lives Matter" or "I miss Bill"? Alito wanted to know.

"It's an invitation for arbitrary enforcement," Alito said, "and enforcement that's not even-handed."

An exasperated Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out that there are restrictions on speech in many places - hospitals, schools, courtrooms. So, he said, if we are trying to have a place "where a person has reflective thought for a moment after the hurly-burly of the campaign, this problem will inevitably arise." Alito still seemed unconvinced.

Rogan said that wherever a line is drawn, at the margins, there are always going to be difficult choices. And if those choices are made incorrectly, they can be challenged as applied.

Kennedy wondered about that line and whether the process of asking people to cover up or remove buttons or apparel is itself "more disruptive" than letting people wear what they want.

Rogan argued that the process has to be perceived to have integrity and that if someone wearing a "Make America Great Again" T-shirt is asked more questions about their registration than someone wearing an "I love Hillary" T-shirt, there could be the perception of poll workers playing politics.
A history of intimidation
Until the early 1900s, election days looked nothing like they do now. There were no quiet lines of people waiting to vote in curtained-off booths. Instead, election days were raucous, confusing, even violent affairs.

Voters then, as now, often were split into battling ethnic and ideological tribes, except that back then, the battles outside and inside polling places were often physical - coats were torn from people's backs, ballots snatched from their hands, voters were threatened, and in factory towns, managers often stood at the polling place door to make sure that employees voted the "right way."

In the late 1800s, states began enacting laws to protect voters from harassment and intimidation. Soon, every state had laws that banned electioneering outside polling places, and eventually, most states adopted even stricter laws inside polling places. Among the strictest is a Minnesota law that bars voters from wearing apparel or buttons that bear a "political" message.
Backstory of this case
Under enforcement guidelines issued for Election Day, poll watchers were told to ask voters to either cover up or remove any item of clothing, badge or button that supported or opposed a candidate, ballot question or recognized political party or group, including those like the Tea Party or MoveOn.org.

Also banned was any item designed to influence voting, including specifically "Please I.D. Me" buttons. The buttons were distributed by, among others, the Minnesota Voters Alliance, which acknowledged that by wearing the buttons and flashing their identification, they were creating the false impression that Minnesota law requires a photo ID in order to vote.

"I went to vote in November of 2010," recalls Cilek, executive director of the Minnesota Voters Alliance. "I was wearing a T-shirt. ... It said 'Tea Party Patriots, Don't Tread on Me.' "

According to affidavits in the case, he was also wearing a "Please I.D. Me" button.

"I simply asked for a ballot, and they refused me twice," he said. "The only explanation they gave me is that the shirt was political."

His lawyer, Wen Fa, argues the Minnesota law unconstitutionally sweeps too much speech into a ban on political apparel inside polling places.

"In addition to just banning campaign-related speech like, 'Vote for Bush' or 'Vote for Gore,' it bans passive political speech," Fa said. "For example, the government conceded that this ban would also apply to people wearing shirts featuring the logo of the AFL-CIO or the Chamber of Commerce."

Yes, says Rogan, who is defending the apparel ban; he did make that concession, but only if the ballot included a measure that directly involved either the union or the chamber.
A calm environment for voters
There is nothing nefarious about the apparel ban, says Virginia Gelms, the elections manager for Hennepin County. Most people who are wearing a T-shirt or button are simply unaware of the rule, and when asked to cover it up with a jacket or take it off, they quickly comply and the matter is resolved "without incident."

Cilek's refusal to do that, she said, was viewed as "confusing" to voters and "disruptive" and designed to "draw election judges into a dispute."

Election officials worried, for instance, that people in line would leave without voting if they thought, erroneously, that they needed a photo ID to vote and hadn't brought one with them.

Indeed, she said one head election judge told her that he was not sure he would serve again if the ban is struck down because he wouldn't be able to protect the judges he supervises from getting drawn into political battles. After all, Gelms contends, that is not what polling places are for.

"All those restrictions are there to help election judges manage a calm and efficient process," she said, "so that everybody who has the right to vote can get in, exercise that right, and move on with their day."

In the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Rogan, defending the ban, told the justices that a polling place, like a courtroom or a military base, is not a public forum where people are free to speak their minds.

"The interior of a polling place is designed for one purpose," Rogan has said. "It's designed to provide citizens a place to make their electoral choices and to ensure that those choices are accurately and reliably tallied by elections officials."

And he fears that if the Supreme Court invalidates the Minnesota ban, the next step would be to revisit the Supreme Court decision that upheld a ban on electioneering within 100 feet of a polling place.

Indeed, the attorney for Cilek would not rule that out.

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Should Polling Places Remain Politics-Free? Justices Incredulous At Both Sides

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Every state has a law creating campaign-free buffer zones outside of polling places - laws the Supreme Court has long upheld. On Wednesday, the justices tackled similar and even stricter laws that bar "political" apparel inside polling places. The court did not indicate which way it was leaning in questioning Wednesday.

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Black lives matter was created to bring awareness and equality

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Opinion

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Demonstrators in Chicago blocked an intersection during a protest in 2015 related to the killing by the police of Laquan McDonald. Credit Credit Joshua Lott for The New York Times

CHICAGO - Why has this generation of black activists failed to produce a Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or a Malcolm X - a charismatic, messiah-like figure who can lead a major movement?

The answer is a choice, not a deficiency. The suggestion that the organizations that have emerged from the Black Lives Matter protests are somehow lacking because they have rejected the old style of leadership misses what makes this movement most powerful: its cultivation of skilled local organizers who take up many issues beyond police violence.

This is radical democracy in action. The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition that includes the Black Lives Matter Global Network and other groups, coalesced in response to high-profile police shootings of black people from 2014 to 2016. It is reinvigorating the 21st-century racial-justice movement, and by extension the anti-racist left, by offering a better model for social movements.

The idea behind that model is that when people on the ground make decisions, articulate problems and come up with answers, the results are more likely to meet real needs. And that's more sustainable in the long run: People are better prepared to carry out solutions they themselves created, instead of ones handed down by national leaders unfamiliar with realities in local communities. Such local work allows people to take ownership of the political struggles that affect their lives.

Ella Baker, a N.A.A.C.P. field secretary, executive of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and midwife of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, once said, "Strong people don't need strong leaders." Today's black organizers have taken that message to heart.

Ms. Baker considered the top-down, male-centered, charismatic model of leadership a political dead end. It disempowered ordinary people, especially women and low-income and working-class people, because it told them that they need a savior. If that person is assassinated or co-opted, the movement founders.

At the same time, local leadership is not a magic solution, since local leaders can also be dominant, hierarchical and self-aggrandizing. Group-centered leadership practices, where even celebrities in the movement are responsible to the will of rank-and-file members, help to keep organizations honest.

The lead organizers of the Movement for Black Lives have been influenced by 40 years of work by black feminist and L.G.B.T. scholars and activists. Their writings and practice emphasize collective models of leadership instead of hierarchical ones, center on society's most marginalized people and focus on how multiple systems of oppression intersect and reinforce one another.

This year, the Movement for Black Lives, with support from a team of strategists called Blackbird, coordinated three major days of action: two to commemorate Dr. King's " Beyond Vietnam " speech and a day of national protests against symbols of white supremacy after the racist attacks in Charlottesville, Va. In each case, national coordinators kept a low profile, offering support while encouraging local groups to set their own agendas.

Critics argue that the Movement for Black Lives needs to tighten control of its messaging, discipline its local affiliates and shore up its "brand." It's too bad they can't see the momentum happening at the grass-roots level. To paraphrase Ms. Baker, leaders who teach following as the only way of fighting weaken the movement in the long run.

Local organizers are not passive followers. They are leading creative campaigns in major cities. For example, the Black Youth Project 100, along with other local groups, is working to overturn the New York City Housing Authority's "permanent exclusion" policy, under which people convicted of a crime can be barred from living in or visiting public housing.

Seshat Mack, a student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a leader of the Black Youth Project 100 's New York chapter, explained to me that the campaign, called Housing Over Monitoring and Eviction, has relied heavily on local leadership - in particular, black New Yorkers who live in public housing.

In Chicago, one of the most segregated cities in the country, an "expanded sanctuary" campaign has brought together black people and Latino immigrants to demand an end to punitive practices like the city's gang database. Activists have argued that the criteria for inclusion is vague and that people often don't know they're on the list. A lead organizer in that campaign, Maxx Boykin, underscores the importance of "building trust between people and organizations," which can happen only on the local level.

The fight to end cash bail was bolstered by Mama's Bail Out Day, a campaign that is the brainchild of the Atlanta organizer Mary Hooks, a director of Southerners on New Ground, a queer social-justice organization. The organizers raised over $1 million to bail out more than 100 low-income black women on Mother's Day this year. The Movement for Black Lives umbrella group oversaw the effort by pulling in local bail-reform groups.

One of the most intense efforts within the Movement for Black Lives has been to develop an electoral strategy that can be applied locally. Recently, activists started a project to lay the groundwork for creating local black political power. According to Kayla Reed, a St. Louis organizer who helped develop the project, the goal is to transfer the clarity and radical vision brought to the protest lines to electoral campaigns. The organizers of the project are drawing lessons from the successful progressive mayoral campaigns of Chokwe Lumumba in Jackson, Miss., and Randall Woodfin in Birmingham, Ala., as well as the narrow defeat of Tishaura O. Jones in St. Louis.

Despite progress on many fronts, there is still work to do. The movement does need an easier way for people to get involved and more transparent collective decision-making, as well as space for broader ideological and policy debates.

The Movement for Black Lives is distinctive because it defers to the local wisdom of its members and affiliates, rather than trying to dictate from above. In fact, the local organizers have insisted upon it. This democratic inflection will pay off if they persevere. Brick by brick, relationship by relationship, decision by decision, the edifices of resistance are being built. The national organizations are the mortar between the bricks. That fortified space will be a necessary training ground and refuge for the political battles that lay ahead, as white supremacists inside and outside of our government seek to undermine racial and economic justice.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SR6 of the New York edition with the headline: Black Lives Matter Is Democracy in Action. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Opinion | Black Lives Matter Is Democracy in Action

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Opinion CHICAGO - Why has this generation of black activists failed to produce a Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or a Malcolm X - a charismatic, messiah-like figure who can lead a major movement? The answer is a choice, not a deficiency.

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The citizen deserved to be allowed to participate in voting for who and what hey belive in

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It is not enough to work only on setting up democratic institutions and processes. These institutions and processes must be put to work creating opportunities for citizens to lead healthy and productive lives. Ensuring that government actual works for the public good requires informed, organized, active and peaceful citizen participation. Citizens must therefore understand ideas about citizenship, politics and government. They need knowledge to make decisions about policy choices and the proper use of authority, along with the skills to voice their concerns, act collectively and hold public officials (i.e., elected representatives, civil servants, and appointed leaders) accountable.

The term citizen has an inherently political meaning that implies a certain type of relationship between the people and government. Citizens have a set of rights and responsibilities, including the right to participate in decisions that affect public welfare. In addition to the intrinsic democratic value, participation is an instrumental driver of democratic and socio-economic change, and a fundamental way to empower citizens. Emphasizing locally-led, issue-driven approaches, NDI programs focus on citizens organizing around their interests and taking actions throughout the political cycle to open, access and occupy political space. We recognize that citizen-centered activism - driven by real community needs and desires - is a powerful transformative force.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) are a vehicle through which citizens can aggregate their interests, voice their preference and exercise the power necessary to affect sustained change. However, this requires CSOs learning to work together and to play a variety of complementary political roles that include: acting as watchdogs; advocates; mobilizers; educators; researchers; infomediaries; and policy analysts. Through technical and financial assistance, NDI has supported the efforts of more than 15,000 civic groups across the globe.

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It is not enough to work only on setting up democratic institutions and processes. These institutions and processes must be put to work creating opportunities for citizens to lead healthy and productive lives. Ensuring that government actual works for the public good requires informed, organized, active and peaceful citizen participation.

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Everyone has their civil rights and liberties.

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"Further, these orders hinder ICE's efforts to address the clear public safety threat posed by many of these aliens - the majority of whom have criminal convictions," he said. "Of course, entering the United States illegally is, itself, a crime."

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, countered that the Trump administration is moving "abruptly" to deport the immigrants "without giving them a fair chance to go to immigration court."

He said he thought judges were "being very careful not to go beyond what they have legal authority of what they can do."

Consider the case of Mr. Ragbir, 53, who had a green card when he was convicted of wire fraud in 2000. After serving a prison sentence, he was first ordered deported in 2006, detained and then released on an order of supervision while he appealed his case. Mr. Ragbir since 2011 had checked in periodically with ICE, which continued to allow him to stay in the country.

Then, at his Jan. 11 check-in, ICE detained him, saying he had exhausted his appeals, and took him for deportation. His defense team filed several challenges to keep Mr. Ragbir in the country.

At the end of January, Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Federal District Court in Manhattan ordered Mr. Ragbir released from detention and his deportation delayed. The government, she said, had denied him his right of due process, namely, "the freedom to say goodbye."

With rhetorical flourish that drew the ire of ICE, Judge Forrest, an appointee of President Barack Obama, also compared the United States to "regimes we revile" for what she deemed was "unnecessarily cruel" treatment of Mr. Ragbir.

ICE then scheduled his deportation for Feb. 10.

On Thursday, Mr. Ragbir's lawyers filed a First Amendment suit claiming that ICE had targeted their client because he was an outspoken activist as the director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City.

Matthew T. Albence, the executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations for ICE, denied that charge. "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not target unlawfully present aliens for arrest based on advocacy positions they hold or in retaliation for critical comments they make," he said in a statement. "Any suggestion to the contrary is irresponsible, speculative and inaccurate."

On Friday morning, Mr. Ragbir's lawyers argued in Federal District Court in Newark for a separate stay of deportation so that Judge Kevin McNulty could consider vacating his criminal conviction. Mr. Ragbir's lawyers claim there were errors at his trial.

Judge McNulty, who was appointed by President Obama, said he would take advantage of the pending case in Manhattan to take time to rule, first on his jurisdiction in Mr. Ragbir's case. "The damage he'd suffer, and the injury he'd suffer, as a result of deportation, is obvious to me," Judge McNulty said during the hearing.

The New Jersey district court also issued a temporary hold on deportations of a group of Indonesian immigrants. Two Indonesian fathers were suddenly arrested by ICE on Jan. 25 after dropping their children at school. Two others took sanctuary in their church, the Reformed Church of Highland Park, including Harry Pangemanan, who had helped rebuild more than 200 homes after Hurricane Sandy.

Judge Esther Salas, an appointee of President Obama, declared on Feb. 2 that the Indonesians could not be deported until she could hear the case.

In 2009, more than 40 of these residents, many of whom had overstayed tourist visas and had asylum claims denied, agreed to register with the government in a humanitarian program, in exchange for temporary stays of deportation. Thanks to the intervention of their pastor, the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, they got work permits and had periodic check-ins with ICE, under a program known as "Operation Indonesian Surrender."

But last summer, ICE began ordering the deportations of Indonesian Christians.

Lawyers argued, however, that conditions in the Muslim-majority country had since deteriorated for Christians, so much so they could be tortured if they returned. The government, under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is required to assess the danger for immigrants before it deports them.

In Boston, District Court Judge Patti Saris, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, ruled on Feb. 1 to temporarily halt the deportation of a group of Indonesians who had been living in New Hampshire.

In a hearing Jan. 17, she told the government lawyers that she had not even had a chance to read a petition filed by the Indonesians' A.C.L.U. lawyers. "You're moving so fast to get them out of here," Judge Saris said.

The government has appealed.

In Los Angeles, District Court Judge Cormac Carney, an appointee of President George W. Bush, stopped the deportation of hundreds of Cambodians in December. Many had been living for decades in the country after fleeing the Khmer Rouge and during that time had been convicted of various crimes. Nonetheless, Judge Carney said, they had rights.

Stephen H. Legomsky, a professor of immigration law at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said judges appear to be more active only because they are responding to the aggressiveness of immigration officials.

"Generally, when the political branches do extreme things," he said, "judges will respond with more and more constraints."

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immigration and customs enforcement (us)

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Not So Fast on Deportations, Judges Tell Immigration Agency

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"Further, these orders hinder ICE's efforts to address the clear public safety threat posed by many of these aliens - the majority of whom have criminal convictions," he said. "Of course, entering the United States illegally is, itself, a crime."

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The community is taking a stand against free and fair elections

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Free, Fair, & Regular Elections: Essential Principles | Democracy Web

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It should be noted that the principle of universal suffrage is distinct from the principle of one person, one vote. The latter applies more to political systems with direct representation. But both principles mean that everyone who is qualified has a right to vote and no person's vote can be counted twice.

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Everyone is voting and taking a stand

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Justice Breyer fleshed out the point. "Every year a certain number of people die, and every year a certain number move to California," he said. "We don't want them on the voter roll. That used to be a big problem, voting dead people."

The case concerns Larry Harmon, a software engineer and Navy veteran who lives near Akron, Ohio. He voted in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections but skipped the next one, saying he was unimpressed by the candidates. He also sat out the midterm elections in 2010 and 2014.

In 2015, Mr. Harmon did want to vote, against a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana. But his name had been stricken from the voting rolls.

Federal laws prohibit states from removing people from voter rolls "by reason of the person's failure to vote." But they allow election officials who suspect that a voter has moved to send a confirmation notice.

A central question in the case was whether a failure to vote could be the reason to send out the notice.

Ohio is more aggressive than any other state in purging its voter rolls. After skipping a single federal election cycle, voters are sent a notice. If they fail to respond and do not vote in the next four years, their names are purged from the rolls.

A few other states use similar approaches, but not one of them moves as fast. "Ohio is the only state that commences such a process based on the failure to vote in a single federal election cycle," said a brief from the League of Women Voters and the Brennan Center for Justice. "Literally every other state uses a different, and more voter-protective, practice."

At Wednesday's argument, Eric E. Murphy, Ohio's state solicitor, said about eight states send out notices based on the failure to vote.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said there was good reason to think that "Congress didn't want failure to vote to be a trigger for this procedure."

But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the laws appeared to permit Ohio to use its notification process.

"Why isn't the best interpretation of this that one cannot be removed from the list solely because of failure to vote?" he asked. The failure to respond to the notice, he suggested, was an additional reason.

Paul M. Smith, a lawyer for the challengers, said there were far more reliable methods of figuring out whether people had moved, including consulting records kept by the post office and motor vehicle departments.

On the other hand, Mr. Smith said, "the failure to vote for two years tells you almost nothing about whether or not anybody has moved."

He said more than half of Ohio voters sit out elections over a two-year period and 70 percent of people who receive notices from the state do not return them.

"The process is vastly overbroad in its design," Mr. Smith said. "You're just going to end up with a lot of false positives."

Mr. Smith added that it is lawful for states to send nonforwardable notices based on the failure to vote, and take action based on the ones returned as undeliverable.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. seemed surprised by the concession. "So the triggering event can be the failure to vote?" he asked. "I would have thought that's inconsistent with the rest of your argument."

But the distinction between a failure to respond to a notice and one returned as undeliverable seemed to appeal to Justice Breyer.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch asked no questions.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled in favor of Mr. Harmon in 2016, saying that Ohio had violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 by using the failure to vote as a "trigger" for sending the notices.

Without that decision, "the ballots of more than 7,500 eligible Ohioans would have gone uncounted in the November 2016 election," Mr. Harmon's lawyers at Demos and the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a Supreme Court brief.

A Reuters study in 2016 found that at least 144,000 people were removed from the voting rolls in recent years in Ohio's three largest counties, which are home to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus.

"Voters have been struck from the rolls in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods at roughly twice the rate as in Republican neighborhoods," the study found. "Neighborhoods that have a high proportion of poor, African-American residents are hit the hardest."

Twelve states, generally led by Democrats, filed a brief supporting Mr. Harmon. Seventeen states, generally Republican, filed a brief on the other side.

The Justice Department for decades took the position that failing to vote should not lead to disenfranchisement. In the appeals court, the Obama administration filed a brief supporting Mr. Harmon.

After the last presidential election, the department switched sides in the case, Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, No. 16-980.

Questioning Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco, Justice Sotomayor said that it "seems quite unusual that your office would change its position so dramatically," particularly where the new stance had "a negative impact on certain groups in this society."

Mr. Francisco responded that further study of the key statute and a concern for states' rights had prompted the shift.

Late in the argument, Justice Alito said the case must turn on the words of the governing federal laws.

"It's a very important subject," he said. "It's a sensitive subject. As a policy matter, there are strong arguments on both sides."

"Congress had struck a compromise," Justice Alito said. "What we have before us is a question of statutory interpretation, not a question of what we think would be the ideal system for achieving the result of removing people who have moved from the voter lists."

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Supreme Court Weighs Purge of Ohio Voting Rolls

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Justice Breyer fleshed out the point. "Every year a certain number of people die, and every year a certain number move to California," he said. "We don't want them on the voter roll. That used to be a big problem, voting dead people."