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U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch spoke out against their peers’ choice this week for siding with the Biden administration in an appeal about an abortion case.

The majority of the high court let the government keep federal funds for family planning from Oklahoma because the state won’t send pregnant people to a national hotline that gives abortion information.

Oklahoma’s emergency application was turned down, but the order doesn’t say why; it just says that the application was turned down and that Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch would have approved it if they had their way.

On the court’s so-called “shadow docket,” where cases are decided quickly without full briefing or hearings, that lack of explanation isn’t uncommon.

“Nor is it surprising that those three justices split from their colleagues in the latest abortion-related action, following the court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. While Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch were just three of the five justices in the Dobbs majority who voted to ditch Roe — Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were the other two — they might be the most reliable votes for anti-abortion litigants,” MSN reported.

“We saw that just this past term, for example, when the court allowed emergency abortions in Idaho to go forward for the time being, over dissent from those same three justices,” the outlet added.

These three justices said in a different order from the summer that they would have fully agreed with the Republicans in the case RNC v. Mi Familia Vota, which was about some other issue.

That was the most recent sign that voting rights are very uncertain before the election in November. Those three justices might be ready to go as far as Republicans want, but the other Republican appointees to the court could decide how far the court will go overall.

The next term of the Supreme Court starts in October, and Tuesday’s order makes it seem like that will also be the case with abortion issues.

The U.S. Supreme Court made headlines last month in a separate case when it granted a partial win to the Republican petitioners in a case involving an Arizona law that requires voters to show proof of citizenship before casting their ballots.

The ruling is considered a significant victory for election integrity ahead of the closely contested 2024 elections in the state. The court was asked to allow enforcement of sections of Arizona law requiring documented proof of citizenship to cast a ballot in the presidential election, including when voting by mail, Fox News reported.

The Republican Party of Arizona noted on Aug. 15 that it had filed the emergency application pending appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit “in support of HB 2492, our law requiring proof of citizenship to vote in presidential elections.” Previously, a federal judge blocked enforcement of the law, which triggered the appeal.

“The Constitution gives states the power to set voter qualifications, and Arizona is leading the charge to ensure ONLY CITIZENS vote in our elections,” the Arizona GOP tweeted. “This case has the potential to prevent non-citizen voting once and for all, which should have been the case all along.”

An emergency stay application filed by the Republican National Committee argues that voter integrity is a pressing issue that remains unaddressed, particularly in light of the presence of unauthorized immigrants in the country.

In the ruling, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch would have granted the application in full, while Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson would have denied it entirely, Fox noted. As such, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh provided a compromise of sorts with their deciding votes.

“The Supreme Court left in place a lower court’s ruling that barred enforcement of the law that required voters to document their US citizenship to vote in this year’s presidential election, but it allowed the state to enforce a requirement that would-be voters document their citizenship before registering to vote using a state registration form,” CNN noted.

“In a partial win for Republicans, in other words, proof of citizenship will be required for new voters in some circumstances. Voters who cannot document their citizenship status will still be allowed to register using a federal form,” the report added.

In 2013, the Supreme Court restricted states’ ability to require proof of citizenship from individuals who registered using the federal form. The Court determined that under the National Voter Registration Act, states could not deny voters the right to cast ballots in federal elections if the federal form did not include a citizenship proof requirement, CNN added.

Republicans argued that Congress lacked the authority to dictate rules for states’ vote-by-mail systems and voter registration requirements for presidential elections. They contended that states, including Arizona, have the right to mandate proof of citizenship for voting in state and local elections, said the outlet.

The case also involved a 2018 consent decree from a separate lawsuit, which established a fail-safe system for individuals without documentary proof of citizenship. This system was abolished by the 2022 law.

Under the decree, local election officials were required to check the state’s DMV database for citizenship records when processing voter registrations.

If records confirming citizenship were found, the individual was fully registered. If not, the individual was not registered for state elections but could still vote in federal elections.

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