"Rural" used 13 times (12 of them in dissent) in today's Supreme Court decision on voting rights in Arizona

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision today in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, a voting rights case.  The decision that will be roundly and soundly criticized from the left for upholding Arizona restrictions on voting.  I could jump on that bandwagon, albeit without expertise because I am not a voting rights scholar.  Instead, I'm going to focus here on the unusual amount of attention that "rural" drew in the opinion, more than I've seen in any Supreme Court decision I've every read (which admittedly is not exhaustive as I am not a scholar of constitutional law).  The issue here is similar to that which I've written about a great deal in the context of abortion:  when is a regulation too much of a burden on a fundamental right--whether it is the right to get an abortion or the right to vote?  

In Brnovich, the dissent argued that rural residents--especially "rural Native Americans" because of the distances they must travel to reach a post office or polling place--are inappropriately burdened by an Arizona law that prohibits ballot harvesting.  Here's a representative quote from the dissent: 

Arizona’s law mostly banning third-party ballot collection also results in a significant 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 office. Native Americans in 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 ballots by mail and sending them back poses a serious challenge for Arizona’s rural Native Americans.  (emphasis added)

The majority relegated its response to a footnote (footnote 21) that replied primarily on the U.S. Postal Service's functioning to suggest these rural voters will be taken care of:

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 office may be some distance from their homes, and that they may not have automobiles. Post, at 36. We do not dismiss these problems, but for a number of reasons, they do not provide a basis for invalidating HB 2023. The burdens that fall on remote communities are mitigated 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 testified that HB 2023 would make it significantly more difficult 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 effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where post offices are not self-sustaining.” 39 U. S. C. §101(b); see also §403(b)(3). Small post offices may not be closed “solely for operating at a deficit,” §101(b), and any decision to close or consolidate a post office may be appealed to the Postal Regulatory Commission, see §404(d)(5). An alleged failure by the Postal Service to comply with its statutory obligations in a particular location does not in itself provide a ground for overturning a voting rule that applies throughout an entire State.

That seems a shaky defense given the recent performance of the U.S. Post Office, along with proposed changes to its performance. More analysis to follow in a future post.