LIVE: U.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Arizona's "Ballot Harvesting" Ban, As Nation Watches Impact On Voting Rights

 Arizona's law banning so-called "ballot harvesting" is back in front of the U.S. Supreme Court for oral arguments on Tuesday, and this time the entire nation is watching to see what impact the decision will have on voting rights around the country.

Chandler attorney Tom Ryan will be joining Arizona's Law on Twitter at 8am to discuss the oral arguments as they are taking place (aka live tweeting), and we will be posting the audio and transcripts later once they become available. (If you are so inclined, you can listen along with us. Thanks, C-Span)

Although a lot of the national coverage has been indicating that there are TWO cases being argued tomorrow, in fact there is only one. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and the Arizona Republican Party *separately* appealed the same 9th Circuit decision finding Arizona's "ballot harvesting" law to be unconstitutional. The AG's Office told Arizona's Law at the time that it had not been in communication with the AZGOP, which would explain the multiple appeals. The Supreme Court eventually consolidated the appeals and will hear from both the AG's and the AZGOP's counsel.

The "ballot harvesting" ban passed by Arizona's Legislature and signed into law by Governor Doug Ducey in 2016. It prohibits anyone from turning in early ballots on behalf of anyone who is not a family member (among other exceptions).

Tomorrow's oral argument may also touch briefly on Arizona's law preventing counties from counting "out of precinct" ballots. Several Arizona counties still use precinct-based polling locations, and state law prevents them from counting ballots cast by someone who does not presently live in that precinct. (Maricopa County and several other counties have "vote centers", which eliminates that problem.)

These two different issues were the subjects of cases in two separate Democratic legal challenges in 2016. In the week before the November election, the 9th Circuit issued decisions in both - causing not a little concern, confusion and chaos. For example, there were approximately 24 hours where ballot harvesting could not be prosecuted by the state; the U.S. Supreme Court promptly stopped the 9th Circuit's decision, based on the proximity to the election. (That's the Purcell Principle, named from a previous Arizona election law case that made it to the Supreme Court.)

The present case stems from those challenges developing after the 2016 election, and finally getting to this point.

Arizona's Law and Arizona's Politics have been covering the challenges to this law for more than four years now, posting opinions, briefs and other news coverage. To catch you up, here are summaries from some of those articles.

This article is critical: it is when the 9th Circuit last year determined that the ballot harvesting ban was passed by the Legislature with the intent to discriminate.

The November 5, 2016 bulletin where the U.S. Supreme Court put the ban back into place for the following week's election.

Just the day before, the 9th Circuit had stayed enforcement of the ban.

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"AZ Law" includes articles, commentaries and updates about opinions from the Arizona Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court, as well as trial and appellate courts, etc. AZ Law is founded by Phoenix attorney Paul Weich, and joins Arizona's Politics on the internet. 

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