The US Supreme Court voted 5-3 to uphold Alabama’s ban on curbside voting Wednesday evening, drawing a sharp dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who claimed the requested injunction “lifts burdensome requirements rather than imposing them.”
The one-paragraph order released Wednesday evening stemmed from a lawsuit disputing the curbside voting ban imposed by Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill. Prior to the ban, Alabama did not require voting sites to offer curbside voting. Curbside voting allows voters to hand their ballots directly to poll workers.
In her dissent, Sotomayor considered the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic. She wrote, “Alabama’s Department of Public Health has identified 174,528 cases of COVID–19 in the State, leading to 19,801 hospitalizations and 2,805 deaths.” She pointed out that “[t]o combat the spread of COVID–19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that States consider curbside voting.”
Further, she claimed that curbside voting is not a radical recommendation. The Department of Justice has sanctioned curbside voting in the past as a remedy to Americans with Disabilities Act violations.
I would deny the stay. The secretary has not shown any legal error below. We should not substitute the District Court’s reasonable, record-based findings of fact with our own intuitions about the risks of traditional in-person voting during this pandemic or the ability of willing local officials to implement adequate curbside voting procedures.
Sotomayor referenced the “modest” nature of the injunction against the ban. Additionally, she indicated that granting the injunction would not require sites to implement curbside voting. The injunction would merely give counties the option. Finally, she asserted that the Supreme Court should not stand in the way of deadly virus protections for voters.
This decision is the latest in a series of voting rights lawsuits affecting the November general election. Looking ahead, Republican legislators in North Carolina might seek review from the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court upheld an extension of the absentee ballot receipt window.
