The Supreme Court heard arguments the other day on an Ohio voter registration law.  That law removes voters from the roll if they haven’t voted over a two-year period and don’t respond to a follow-up notice from Ohio’s Secretary of State.

It’s a partisan case from the Left’s perspective: those opposing the law argue, with some justification, that those who live in urban regions (and who happen to vote Democratic) relocate more frequently than do those who live in the ‘burbs and out in the country (and who happen to vote Republican).  This would seem to put Democrats at a disadvantage in elections since they’re more likely to have not voted over a two-year period and not responded to the follow-up notice.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor put the thing nakedly: Ohio’s law

results in disenfranchising disproportionately certain cities where large groups of minorities live, where large groups of homeless people live

and, as the WSJ added,

including people who can’t make it to the polls because of the long hours they work.

The one is at best a misunderstanding, albeit entirely consistent with the Left’s view that responsibility lies with Government and not with the individual.  The other is just nonsense.

Urbanites may well have a higher turnover rate than suburbanites and [farmers], but nothing stops those who leave from registering to vote in their new jurisdiction, and nothing stops those arriving as “replacements” for the departed from registering in the current jurisdiction.  Turnover has nothing to do with it, skin color (I won’t address ethnicity; we’re all Americans in the voting booth) has nothing to do with it, homelessness has nothing to do with it (although this group has a beef in terms of demonstrating their residency so they can register).

The other is wholly irrelevant: Ohio has an extensive early voting time frame; there are lots of opportunities for those with long hours to go vote.