In my posts this week, I’ve made the case for treating the Fifteenth Amendment as an independent constitutional provision and why the colorblind approach developed in equal protection jurisprudence is an ill-fit in voting rights cases.

For my final post, I’ll address the en banc Ninth Circuit’s serendipitously timed decision in DNC v. Hobbs, holding that Arizona violated the Fifteenth Amendment. In case you who haven’t read the 432-page opinion, here’s the basic facts as they relate to the Fifteenth Amendment holding. For brevity’s sake, I’m skipping over another invalidated Arizona law concerning out-of-precinct ballots and the court’s analysis of Section 2 of the VRA.

For years, Arizona permitted third parties to collect early ballots and deliver them by mail or to a polling place. Historically, minority voters were far more likely than white voters to rely on third-party ballot collectors due to unreliable mail service, inflexible work schedules, and transportation problems. And like in many jurisdictions, voting in Arizona is racially polarized.

Read more at Election Law Blog