The Supreme Court decided a presidential election 16 years ago based on how votes were counted. This year, a shorthanded court seeking to avoid the limelight may help decide who can vote in the first place. Petitions challenging restrictions on voting in key states could reach the high court before Election Day, putting the justices exactly where they don’t want to be — at the fulcrum of American politics in what promises to be a wild race for the White House. Chief Justice John Roberts’ court has itself to thank for some of the laws enacted after the justices struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Those laws impose new rules for registering and voting that could limit access to the polls for minorities and young people in particular — the coalition that propelled Barack Obama to the White House in 2008 and 2012.
Since the court’s 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore ended a dispute over Florida’s vote count in George W. Bush’s favor, the justices have intervened regularly in elections. They allowed Ohio Republicans to challenge voters at the polls in 2004. They upheld Indiana’s photo identification law in 2008. Two years ago, they let restrictions passed by Republican legislatures stand in North Carolina, Ohio and Texas while blocking them in Wisconsin.
This year, the court may be asked by civil rights groups and the Democratic Party to play its most important role since 2000 — at a time when Justice Antonin Scalia’s death has left it with only eight members and at risk of deadlocking.
“We may very well continue to see a showdown this fall before the court,” says Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “The stakes are high.”
Full Article: Courts may play pivotal role on voting rights in 2016 election.