Marston v. Lewis

410 U.S. 679, 93 S. Ct. 1211, 35 L. Ed. 2d 627, 1973 U.S. LEXIS 94

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: March 19, 1973
• Docket: 72-899
• Status: Published

Opinions

Per Curiam.

Fourteen county recorders and other public officials of Arizona appeal from a judgment of a three-judge district court holding the State’s 50-day durational voter residency requirement and its 50-day voter registration requirement unconstitutional under the decision in Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330 (1972).¹ A permanent injunction was entered against enforcement of these or any other greater-than-30-day residency and registration requirements in any election held after November 1972. Appellants do not seek review of the District Court’s judgment insofar as it enjoins application of the 50-day requirements in presidential elections. See Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 316, 42 U. S. C. § 1973aa-l.² Appellants assert, however, that the requirements, as applied to special, primary, or general elections involving state and local officials, are supported by sufficiently strong local interests to pass constitutional muster. We agree and reverse.

In Dunn v. Blumstein, we struck down Tennessee’s durational voter residency requirement of one year in the State and three months in the county. We recognized that a person does not have a federal constitutional right to walk up to a voting place on election day and demand a ballot. States have valid and sufficient interests in providing for some period of time — prior to an election — in order to prepare adequate voter records and protect its electoral processes from possible frauds. A year, or even three months, was found too long, particularly in the context of “the judgment of the Tennessee lawmakers,” who had set “the cutoff point for registration [at] 30 days before an election . . . .” 405 U. S., at 349. The Arizona scheme, however, stands in a different light. The durational residency requirement is only 50 days, not a year or even three months. Moreover, unlike Tennessee’s, the Arizona requirement is tied to the closing of the State’s registration process at 50 days prior to elections and reflects a state legislative judgment that the period is necessary to achieve the State’s legitimate, goals.

We accept that judgment, particularly in light of the realities of Arizona’s registration and voting procedures. Those procedures, apparently first adopted during the Populist Era, rely on a “massive” volunteer deputy registrar system. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-141. According to appellants’ testimony, although these volunteers make registration convenient for voters, they average 1.13 mistakes per voter registration and the county recorder must correct those mistakes before certifying to the “completeness and correctness” of each precinct register. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-155. The District Court itself noted that there were estimates that “in Maricopa County alone, some 4,400 registered voters might be denied the right to vote if the county voter list is in error by only one percent.”

An additional complicating factor in Arizona registration procedures is the State’s fall primary system. The uncontradicted testimony demonstrates that in the weeks preceding the deadline for registration in general elections — a period marked by a curve toward the “peak” in terms of the registration affidavits received — county recorders and their staffs are unable to process the incoming affidavits because of their work in the fall primaries. It is only after the primaries are over that the officials can return to the accumulated backlog of registration affidavits and undertake to process them in accordance with applicable statutory requirements.

On the basis of the evidence before the District Court, it is clear that the State has demonstrated that the 50-day voter registration cutoff (for election of state and local officials) is necessary to permit preparation of accurate voter lists. We said in Dunn v. Blumstein that “[f]ixing a constitutionally acceptable period is surely a matter of degree. It is sufficient to note here that 30 days appears to be an ample period of time for the State to complete whatever administrative tasks are necessary to prevent fraud — and a year, or three months, too much.” 405 U. S., at 348. In the present case, we are confronted with a recent and amply justifiable legislative judgment that 50 days rather than 30 is necessary to promote the State’s important interest in accurate voter lists. The Constitution is not so rigid that that determination and others like it may not stand.

The judgment of the District Court, insofar as it has been appealed from, is

Reversed.

1 The requirements appear, respectively, at Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 16-101 (3) and 16-107. These provisions were enacted after our decision in Dunn v. Blumstein.

Appellees are a deputy registrar in Maricopa County and a resident of Maricopa County.

2 Section 1973aa-l withstood constitutional attack in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112 (1970).