alito, no. maybe with the right people, but i think this is the moment if you want to see kilo, i cannot imagine there are five votes to keep kilo on the books. mr. malcolm: question back here? >> i have a question about 10 then and fulton and how they relate to each other. is there anyway we can understand what happened in fulton to be informed by what had just happened on the shadow docket with attendant -- with attendant? what is the relationship between those two cases and how the one might have impacted the other? >> in a broad generality the same theory holds in both cases. as soon as you give a secular activity permission, you have to give the religious activity that same status. people call this the most favored nation theory of the free exercise clause. a version of that happened in the fulton, where a secular exemption -- even if it only exists at -- as a matter of theory -- is good enough to require a religious exemption. mr. malcolm: anyone want to add to that? >> i think the court m

alito, no. maybe with the right people, but i think this is the moment if you want to see kilo, i cannot imagine there are five votes to keep kilo on the books. mr. malcolm: question back here? >> i have a question about 10 then and fulton and how they relate to each other. is there anyway we can understand what happened in fulton to be informed by what had just happened on the shadow docket with attendant -- with attendant? what is the relationship between those two cases and how the one might have impacted the other? >> in a broad generality the same theory holds in both cases. as soon as you give a secular activity permission, you have to give the religious activity that same status. people call this the most favored nation theory of the free exercise clause. a version of that happened in the fulton, where a secular exemption -- even if it only exists at -- as a matter of theory -- is good enough to require a religious exemption. mr. malcolm: anyone want to add to that? >> i think the court m

ellie, this is what justice alito has now said.ich is that there are five factors that courts have to consider whether or not a law is discriminatory. when courts are faced with time, place and manner he writes, any circumstance that has a logical bearing on whether voting is equally open and affords equal opportunity may be considered, nevertheless, he provides a nonexhaustive list, five factors, the size of the burden imposed by a challenged voting rule. the degree to which a voting rule departs from the standard practice when the voting rights act was amended in 1982. the size of any disparities. the opportunities provided by a state's entire system of voting when assessing the burden imposed by a challenged provision and the strength of the state interests served by a challenged roting rule. states want to prevent voter fraud. >> to drop out some of the legal jargon here, alito's standard is as long as you don't say the "n" word when you are taking away people's votes, that is fine. these laws that he just held up with the help

justice alito has not been as strong of a textualist as other justices. think of gorsuch and thomas especially they signed on to this opinion, it was 6-3 opinion, the six conservative justice including three appointed by trump, has been strong textualists. and justice kavanaugh wrote a wrong word in harvard law review. yet they came up with guide post that has absolutely no connection to the text of the statute or even to precedent, which is something textualists will often look to. or to just the earlier versions of section two and, again, this part of the act was rewritten in 1982 because the supreme court got it wrong in 1980 in the city of mobile versus bolden case when court said section two didn't cover discriminatory results and congress clearly put it back in and any textualist would under as justice kagan explains in her dissent, the first question is are they treated worse, if you can say they were treated worse that's what should be charge of that. and justice alito was smoke and mirrors to make mistakes in this area. >> one question for all fi

and the arguments we just heard about justice alito are patently wrong and unfair. thank you. >> thank you, senator. we have a big difference of opinion, but i just want to go back to what the supreme court said about pre-clearance. not that it was unconstitutional in striking it down in shelby county, but that it wasn't needed anymore. in fact, chief justice roberts ' majority opinion in shelby county acknowledged that pre-clearance had worked. senator cornyn, i think, here just a little while ago said pre-clearance worked. none of them said it was non-constitutional. >> to be clear that's not what i'm saying, i'm saying all pre-clearance was and is. hr4 is. >> but going back to the supreme court's opinion, justice roberts said, quote, conditions have changed, end quote. and in the south there was no longer any need for it. frankly, as the late justice ginsburg said in dissent, quote, throwing out pre-clearance with when it's worked when it makes discriminatory changes is like throwing away an umbrella in a rain storm because you're not getting wet, end quote. well

here's alito. fraud can affect the outcome of an election. fraud can also undermine public confidence in the fairness of elections. heavens to betsy. the perceived legitimacy in the outcome. yes. you see how important the work of voter fraud is so that alito can use it to justify these kinds of laws. >> yeah. this opinion by alito is really the institutionalization of the big lie and of the myth of voter fraud over the past two decades. in shelby county john roberts invented a principle, equal sovereignty of the states while alito took the republican playbook about lying about voter fraud. he said a state can do whatever it wants if it tries to stop voter fraud, even if there is no voter fraud. if minority voters face all of these burdens, that's not enough to strike down these voter suppression laws. he's enacting all of these new tests that minority voters have to show to strike down discriminatory voting laws while basically giving states carte blanche to suppress voters as long as they point to some perceived threat of fraud, even if ther

justice alito noted that mere inconvenience is insufficient. can you expand a little bit on what that means? mr. proper: -- mr. popper:. yes. in many ways, thank you for your question, i am sorry i was organizing something else. in many ways, it is an application of what we call the anderson burden test where you have an administrative burden to a civil right, you assess the importance of the state interest and how much of an inconvenience it is. if it is a severe inconvenience, that is one thing. if it is not, at another point the court mentions, if there are other ways to get done what you need to get done as a voter, you have to take that into account. you have to be practical about this. i think that in a way, or perhaps directly, what the court was doing was combating the proliferation of lawsuits of little merit that had sprung up, a cottage industry of challenging any restriction of early voting, any restriction of registration or same-day registration, any restriction of voting in precinct. particularly if you want to pass a law one way

thomas, alito, gorsuch, cavanaugh, and barrett.hink of it in terms of granting , it takes four votes to take the case. the four most conservative justices might be reluctant to take cases if they don't know they have a vote by roberts. now they know they likely have five conservative votes. that will change the agenda of the supreme court. i do not want to in role for john roberts. he is still the chief. he is still assigned to write the majority opinion when he is in the majority. but one interesting statistic this term, it was brett kavanaugh who was the justice most often in the majority. he was there 97% of the time. second, there was no pretense of judicial deference by the court this time. there was a time when judicial conservatism was a deference to elected officials. we do not see that this year. as i went through the list of cases we are talking about, in almost every instance, the government lost with the court , repeatedly striking down federal and state statutes. i think it makes it a very different kind of conservatis

but now that bs is led to samuel alito rewriting the voting rights act. >> that is exactly it. ari berman, thank you so much. >> thank you, chris. >> like i said at the top there was a huge news day on top of the court ruling. there are criminal charges against the trump organization one of trump's longest serving executive, allen weisselberg, we're gonna talk about what's in the 15 felony counts. plus we found out today who will serve on that select committee tasked with investigating january six, former lead impeachment manager jamie raskin is on that list and he joins me now right here, next. don't go anywhere. n't go anywhere. sadly, not anymore. wow. so sudden. um, we're not about to have the "we need life insurance" conversation again, are we? no, we're having the "we're getting coverage so we don't have to worry about it" conversation. so you're calling about the $9.95 a month plan -from colonial penn? -i am. we put it off long enough. we are getting that $9.95 plan, today. (jonathan) is it time for you to call about the $9.95 plan? i'm jonathan from colonial penn life i

justice alito wrote the opinion for the court. he said prior cases involved so-called -- [indiscernible] it is mostly about redrawing districts that had a racially discriminatory impact. he says this is the first time we have dealt with time, place, manner restrictions of voting. he said it is important to look at the totality of circumstances. he then identified five considerations. the burden imposed on voters. we stressed some laws imposed by voting. and apart from practices in 1982 , why 1982? that is when the voting rights act amendments were adopted. and the scale of racially discriminatory impact. quite significantly, justice alito said that if there is an impact, it's not enough for violation. there are other ways, employment, wealth, education. what are the other opportunities provided for those? are there other ways that somebody can vote? what is the strength of the states interest? justice alito was clear that the unusual way of approaching disparate impact was not clear. justice kagan wrote a vehement dissent. she poi

justice samuel alito offered the court's majority opinion, stating the laws do not violate the federal voting rights act. justice kagendy sented, saying the majority changed the law's meaning. we'll show you the oral arguments in the case from last march. >> all persons having business before the honorable the supreme court of the united states are admonishing to give their attention, the court is now sitting. god save the united states and this honorable court. >> we will hear argument this morning >> may it please the court. i think the key conceptual point here to understand is that arizona is that denied anyone any voting opportunity of any kind. this is not like a literacy test which denies you the right to vote. it's not like vote delusion where white block voting denies minorities an equal opportunity to elect. everyone here is eligible and registered to vote. all they have to do is utilize the myriad opportunities that arizona's offered them over 27 days to vote by mail for free or in person. and since there's no denial of opportunities, this is a disparate impact claim that wo

justice alito is clear the usual way of approaching disparate impact isn't here. justice kagan wrote a vehement dissent in shelby county. none of the requirements are part of section 2 of the voting rights act. the court is abandoning its usual approach of racially disparate impact talking about that first section 2 in the future. if you look at what justice alito pointed to, make it difficult to prove racial discrimination. all they could do is prevail. why does this matter? all of these states, georgia, florida and arkansas put significant restrictions on voting, strong evidence for racially discriminatory impacts to george's law, the supreme court's decision makes it harder to bring successful challenges, and it is a significant problem to deal with it. democratic narrative is voter suppression is a major problem. 6 justices accepted the republican narrative. >> the unenviable task of adding nuance to that in two minutes if you will. >> i will note what burnohwhich said is it shapes the landscape for the law of democracy so in addition to this decision in 2021

and alito says, making voting inconvenient doesn't make access unequal.et's just explain to this justice who apparently knows nothing about how voting really works. when you make it inconvenient for a targeted group, you make access unequal. it's exactly the intent of these laws is to make access unequal. elena kagan in her dissent said equal chance to participate in our democracy, that-- referring to the 1965 voting rights act, that law of all laws should never be diminished by this court. you know, section two is the most recent section attacked by the supreme court and it bars procedures that bar any citizen in the united states to vote on account of race or color. one of the issues was from arizona a situation where you have no easy places to drop off your ballot in large native american reservations. so, by banning the ability for people to collect ballots and drop them off, you essentially make it extraordinarily difficult for this targeted community to vote and that was the intent. that was the intent. now, this law, section two. it didn't say that

and -- justice samuel alito offers the courts official opinion. justice elena kagan dissented,. we will hear the oral arguments in the case must march. >> the honorable, the chief justice, and the associate justices of the supreme court of the united states. oy e.a., oy e.a., oyez, >> all persons having business before the honorable the supreme court of the united states are admonishing to give their attention, the court is now sitting. god save the united states and this honorable court. >> we will hear argument this morning and case number -- berkowitz versus democratic national committee and that consolidated case. >> the chief justice, may it please the court. i think the key conceptual point here to understand is that arizona is not denied anyone a budding opportunity of mankind. this is not like a literacy test which denies you the right to vote. it's not like vote dilution where white block voting denies minorities an equal opportunity to elect. everyone here is eligible and registered to vote. all they have to do is utilize the myriad opportunities that arizona's offered

but alito doesn't care. the majority doesn't care on the supreme court about defending the right to vote. the pulse stating heart of -- pulsating heart of our republic. so where does that leave us? it leaves us as the critical factor to defend the constitution. the supreme court won't do it. the states are undermining it. it's our responsibility, our responsibility to set out those basic standards that defend the ability of every american to vote. and that's why i'm here on the floor tonight talking about the for the people act. it's called s. 1, number one, senate bill number one. why? because defending the right to vote is our number one responsibility. that's the challenge we face. and if we fail in this challenge, then across this country in state after state after state communities are being targeted to make it hard for them to vote, and it will be harder for them to vote and it will change the outcome, and it will destroy the idea of equal representation. and we cannot let that happen. today i met with

professor, justice alito like many of my republican colleagues has held himself out to be a challenge philosophy the basic premise of the philosophy is judges start the words of the statute as they would bewe understood at the time they were written. and they were clear go nofu further. any additional analysis would go beyond the role of the judge and is considered inappropriate and judicial activism. but in writing the majority opinion justice abandoned textualism altogether too reach a conclusion that is entirely divorce and the actual text of the voting rights act. it's late to bear the for the conservative majority of the supreme court textualism only applies where it is convenient to reaching the desired case outcome. professor, can you explain how the justice opinion effectively ignores the text of section 202 of the voting rights act? >> thank you, senator. so the first thing i would say is that justice kagan's opinion in the dissent is a much more fateful interpretation of what the words actually say in the context in which they were written. justice has not been as strong of

"mere inconvenience cannot be enough to justify a violation of the voting rights act," alito wrote. in an impassioned dissent, justice elena kagan writing for the court's liberals declared, "what is tragic is that the court has damaged a statute designed to bring about the end of discrimination in voting. " and in arizona, native american activists said the ruling will make it harder for them to vote. >> only 26% of native americans live on a postal route, meaning you can't get mail at home in most places. and that's why ballot collection matters. >> terry moran joins us now. terry, president biden put out a statement today, saying he was extremely disappointed in the court's decision. terry, the president has made it clear that he and his attorney general merrick garland will be fighting these state measures that they say restrict voting access. what are they learning from this case? >> reporter: they're learning it's going to be harder for the justice department or anyone else to challenge these new laws, to prove that they have a discriminatory impact on minorities. they'll need

alito says, no big deal. you have lots of ways to vote. it's not that hard get it right where you figure out where to vote in person. it turns out because of certain factors having to do with lack of mailing addresses, with having the wrong precinct assigned to you by your county registrar, because of the lack of address, a lot of native americans who live on the reservation, including the navajo reservation, tend to get assigned the wrong precinct, might make that mistake and never have a chance to fix it. their vote is just struck. similarly, this prohibition of on third party ballot collection, alito makes it seem like no big deal. you have lots of ways to vote. if you want to vote by mail, drop your ballot in the mail. turns out, only 18% of native american voters in the three counties that span the navajo nation reservation lands have at-home mail service. this is something not known to a lot of us who don't live in those areas. that's why it was so disproportionately of native american voters to have these policies in place. those ar

i meant alito, not kavanaugh. they're both so equally bad, it's hard to imagine which is worse. thank you for fighting the good fight. >>> up next on "the reidout" as the suppression session continues in texas, the state's republican attorney general is trying to instill fear into black voters setting high bail and the potential of 40 years in prison, 40 years, for 62-year-old hervis rogers who waited more than six hours to vote and said he had no idea that he wasn't allowed to under the jim crow era rules. his attorney joins me next. >>> plus lying about the big lie. trump's lawyers are hauled into court and pretend they have no role in spreading misinformation about donald trump's defeat. >>> plus cheering on sickness and death. "the reidout" continues after this. "the reidout" continues after this now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are getting clearer. ♪ ♪ i feel free to bare my skin yeah, that's all me. ♪ ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand nothing on my skin, ♪ ♪ that's my new plan. ♪ ♪ nothing is everything. ♪ achieve clearer skin with skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clea

>> alito. >> excuse me, justice alito. >> i know but i know why you would want to combine the two becauserying to be like scalia, even though he is alito. even though they're both italian. >> there is nothing wrong with being italian. >> what i am saying is this. i'm asking a different question. >> chris, let me talk just for a minute because it's your show. >> you ever been talking a lot, to be honest. but go ahead. >> well, that's what being a guest is. you get to talk. >> it's a conversation. two people talk in a conversation. go ahead. >> fair enough and i -- and i respect the fact that you have me on. but my point to you is the following, which is don't act like there's not a legitimate claim when you have an election that's one we've never had before with all these mailed-in ballots. don't act like it's outrageous for republicans and conservatives, and people who like trump, to be un -- be really -- question this case of why didn't we vote the same way we voted in 2016, where everyone who voted by mail, you had to verify that you were a legal voter. in 2020, we simply didn't do that

justice alito authored a mighty concurring opinion teasing out this principle of autonomy even more so in a broader sense, broader way than the chief justice opinion did but his opinion was joined by nine to nothing my dear friends. why? return but almost the membership not the entire membership. the supreme court unanimously in favor in the face of a serious potential violation of civil rights. it's the concurring opinion. the alito concurring opinion ripened and now as of this last summer, the atomic principal was into companion catholic school cases i thought we would win the forces of liberty would win. i thought it was a very hard case because the los angeles diocese did not require the lay teachers to be catholic. and yet there are certain religious duties that each teacher had. that was sufficient to carry the day seven -- two majority. that is autonomy. the ability of churches and church schools on church ministries to say as i put it, hands off caesar. leaving of the federal government have a very powerful interest as it does in the civil rights laws no you cannot go here. tho

i want to read to you from justice alito's opinion.d entirely legitimate state interest is the prevention of fraud. fraud can affect the outcome of a close election, and fraudulent votes dilute the right of citizens to cast ballots that carry appropriate weight. fraud can also undermine public confidence in the fairness of elections and the perceived legitimacy of the announced outcome. so there was no fraud, and i guess what haunts me since i read these words, neil, is that disinformation and this red herring there was enough fraud -- let me read the words. fraudulent votes dilute the right of citizens to cast votes that carry appropriate weight. in the context of an ex president who is carrying out a conspiracy about fraud that was so repugnant to bill barr that he left, that he knocked them down. to hear a supreme court justice write an opinion that fraud can affect the outcome of elections feels like playing with fire. >> yeah, i mean it is tenured at best, nicolle. i think it is notable that justice alito along with the other just

i think on the face of it justice alito is saying that you already have a lot of other options on how person or by male, so j mail. so just the fact that they have these two other restrictions saying if you cast it at the wrong precinct it gets thrown out or the so-called ballot harvesting where activists can take the ballots and cast them instead of having a family member do it for instance. he is saying as long as you have other options, if they want to restrict those two things, it is foon. so it puts the thumb on the scale for the gop-led states that are trying to have all kinds of restrictive voting laws. so even if this case may seem like you have other cases, in other cases it member harder to show that disabparate impact on minorities. so the thing to watch, do democrats feel like they have to gut the filibfilibuster. so maybe this is the way forward on it. but i don't see any indication that senator manchin or sin made ow send send made owing will say that we have to move. >> all right. and the newly formed house commit at the to investigation get a the insurrection planning

and -- justice samuel alito offers the cou

that is a sliver of what justice alito and his five conservative colleagues did to the remaining part or what happened to the remaining part of section 2 of the voting rights act. >> and you know, the other thing, ruth, i'll add to the litany of things you just pointed out. also, a lot of people don't have formal street addresses. that was something that came up, i believe, in north dakota. joan, your reaction to the supreme court decision. >> well, ruth has it exactly right. and then there are more sections of the alito decision you can put on the screen to outrageous all on this beautiful holiday morning, jonathan. one of them that jumped out at me was where he essentially enshrines donald trump's big lie about voter fraud and says voter fraud is a very serious concern, you know, it's correct, states must worry about this. it is a legitimate concern. voter fraud is almost non-existent, and he writes in a language that was really reminiscent of the way a lot of trump supporters, lawyers, legislators, et cetera, in congress and in state legislatures around the country talked about, we

alito argues even small amounts of fraud could impact a close election. a reminder there was no fraud in 2020 that impacted any of the election results. so "the post" goes on admitted that laws in question disproportionately affectblack, latino and native american voters, often decided by fraction of percentage points and every vote should be seen as precious. "the post" and "the times" point out there are other legal avenues to challenge restrictions but a legal path that was already the equivalent of a black diamond ski slope is now a double black diamond, legally speaking. quote, the supreme court decision further weakening the voting rights act affirmed that the only way democrats can we verse restrictive voting laws in gop-controlled states is to pass new federal voting rights by curtailing the senate filibuster. and so it is the filibuster or democracy? that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. a "new york times" domestic correspondent all over this story for many months now. also joining us the reverend al sharpt

>> whit, justice alito writing for the conservative majority, he said these laws may burden minoritiesdisproportionate way, but the numbers are small, we're still talking about an overall small number of voters in a context in a state in which has the justice described it's relatively easy to vote, remember, when margins are small in a state like arizona even a few thousand voters being impacted by a policy might tip the balance of the election, a ruling that will make it easier for states to impose restrictions, harder for plaintiffs like voting rights group to challenge. >> let's bring in our chief justice correspondent pierre thomas, as kate was talking about, at the core of this, do these laws discriminate against specific minority groups, a lot of gro out there who will be disappointed with this decision today? >> absolutely, a lot of the civil rights leaders say thi se problem, that if you look across the board there's not any hard evidence of widespread election fraud, i can tell you the justice department will be looking very closely at this ruling in part because they have tak

. >> justice samuel alito said fractures between the conservatives and liberals. the time, place or manner of how one votes is immune from scrutiny under section two of the voting rights act really just hobbled what was left of that landmark civil rights legislation. the states did not have to go to the department of justice to have laws vetted before they went into effect. this was the last remaining feature with teeth of that part of the voting rights act that would allow them to challenge voting right restrictions. >> pete, can you talk about what this means? there's been a lot of discussion and we covered awe lot on this show state legislatures putting in place laws that would restrict voting rights in states around the country. did you see any of bearing on that outside of arizona? >> sure but there are two ways to attack these voting lieus. one is the statute, which is the voting rights act. the second is the constitutional treatment, equal treatment, equal process, not discriminating. if you look at, for example, the justice department's recent lawsuit in g

in writing for the majority, samuel alito appears to acknowledge that the law targets minorities but writes in part to the extent that minority and non-minority groups differ with respect to employment, wealth and education, even neutral leg regulations my result in some predictable disparities in rates of voting and non-compliance with voting rules. but the mere fact that there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote. for more on this, i'm joined by judith browne dianis, director of the advancement project national office. judith, good to see you again. thank you for being with us. you know, people remind me all the time that jim crow laws very rarely stated that they were jim crow laws. they very rarely stated we're doing this so the black people can't vote. what alito is saying is that we get it, these laws may have a disproportionate impact on minorities and other groups, but that's not important for us to think about. >> that's right. he's saying it's okay to discrimina

to cheat the court upheld the states power to ban the use of third-party ballot harvesting justice alito said an entirely legitimate state interest is the prevention of fraud. and then to carry appropriate weight. and with the fairness of elections and the perceived with the subcommittee of elections in the ranking, committee committee member with that election progress.th in the way that was tossed resulting from ballot harvesting. and despite the well-documented fraud cases hr one visualizes according to democratsal is a state of discrimination but fortunately court ruled that was not the case but the intent and totality of the voting system matters. so justice alitoed voting structures intending to bolster confidence with ballot integrity does not equal discrimination which is what my democratic colleagues continue o to claim. not only does the recent supreme court ruling invalidate the claim that this committee of record demonstrates this as well. claiming that voter id is to suppress the contrary to democratic claims with those of lowering voter turnout and those id last are record

justice alito in his opinion suggested that might be unconstitutional.have to change their voting rules that might infringe on the constitutional rights of states much like the court said back in 2013 when they killed off preclearance. even if congress acts not clear that the supreme court, this very conservative supreme court would agree it's permissible to do so under the constitution. >> thanks for helping us understand all of it. >> thanks. >>> out front next the billionaire space race launched to a whole new level. looks like richard branson might beat jeff bazos to space. kraft. for the win win. ♪ every bubble ♪ ♪ every scrub ♪ ♪ every spray ♪ ♪ every day ♪ ♪ dove and degree fund local youth programs. ♪ every day u does good ♪ unilever (customer) movie night. (burke) should have been watching the stove instead. (customer) tell me something i don't know. (burke) with your farmers policy perk, guaranteed replacement cost, your home can be rebuilt, regardless of your limits. (customer) that's really something. (burke) get a whole lot of something with

that's the most likely but it doesn't mean it is likely. >> michael, justice alito laid out guidelinesre. what kind of precedent does this set as states across the country are enacting their own restrictions? what does it mean for the for the people act, for the john lewis voting rights act? >> it means that democrats really have to put the pressure on not just republicans but our own members, people like manchin, people like cinema, to get this voting rights act put forth. when we head towards the 2022 election, there's no guarantees people will be allowed to vote. republicans are doing everything we can, and we have seen it in 2020, the big lie, just that they want to stop people from voting. it is cruel. it is anti-democratic. i think at the end of the day it will weaken us as a country. >> you know, michael, there have been articles written about why this is happening and why the gop is so focused on this, and there's been a lot of debate over whether this is essentially them trying to be the stop gap to some of the changing demographics here, especially in the sun belt states. is

so what the court, the majority did led by justice alito, was to take that language, the totality of circumstances in section two, and he created a list of factors, five of them, that courts should consider when they're faced with section two violations. just to give you one or two of those factors, for instance, consider the -- how significant the disparity in voting is. there has to be a significant disparity in order to make out a section two violation. also, he said courts have to consider the states' interest in enacting that voting procedure, and he said that a state's already is particularly strong, very strong and significant if they'rtrying to prevent voter fraud. and also consider the size of the burden on the racial minority voter here. all voting schemes, he said, put a burden on almost all voters, but consider, you know, how big a burdens is this right here. now, this was the problem that the dissenters, led by justice kagan, had with the majority's opinion. they said there was nothing in the text of section 2 that lends itself to these factors, these five factors that t

so justice alito said that anything connected in voting imposes some kind of restriction.her have to go to the mailbox to drop off your ballot or go to the polls to drop off your ballot. any time it changes the rules it imposes some restriction. it is not going to be illegal, he said. even if it imposes a minor difference in the way different populations respond to it. the mere fact that there's some disparity in the impact doesn't necessarily mean that the system is not equally open or doesn't give everybody an equal opportunity to vote. that, he said, is the test. he said if there is some minor inconvenience or minor effect on some segment of the population that would tip the scales toward a violation, the skate can overcome that by showing some justification by combatting fraud and it's interesting to look at the baseline in the mid-60s when the voting rights act was passed and what was the voting environment then that it was intending to preserve the fairness and he said back then, very few people voted by mail. so the extent that states opened up their mail voting at