Territorial voting rights case appealed to U.S. Supreme Court

A federal lawsuit involving the inability of residents of Guam and other U.S. territories to vote for president has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The high court typically hears about 80 cases out of the thousands of petitions it receives each year. It announces its docket in early October.

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In November 2015, six U.S. citizens, who all are former Illinois residents now living in Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, filed a lawsuit in Illinois' northern district court with the nonprofit groups Iraq, Afghanistan and Persian Gulf Veterans of the Pacific and the League of Women Voters of the Virgin Islands.

The group argued that the laws allowing them to vote in particular areas, but not certain U.S. territories, including Guam, are a violation of their equal protection rights, according to court documents.

The two Guam plaintiffs in the case are Luis Segovia, who is in the Guam National Guard, and Anthony Bunten, a Navy veteran and Piti resident who moved to Guam in 1997.

Rights don't apply to places under U.S. control

They lost their case in August 2016 when a federal judge ruled that former Illinois residents who live in the territories do not have the right to cast absentee ballots in Illinois. There is no fundamental right to vote in the territories, the judge stated, citing U.S. Supreme Court decisions called the "Insular Cases."

The Insular Cases state constitutional rights do not necessarily apply to places under U.S. control.

The plaintiffs challenged that ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which heard arguments last September. The appeals court in January issued a decision, rejecting the appeal, stating the plaintiffs lack legal standing to challenge overseas voting laws.

'This discrimination is unconstitutional'

“If I had moved to any U.S. territory except Guam, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, or even to a foreign country, I could still vote for president today. This kind of discrimination isn’t just morally wrong, it’s unconstitutional,” Segovia said Tuesday in a written statement. “My right to vote should not depend on my ZIP Code.”

“No American should be denied voting representation in the laws they are required to follow,” said Pamela Colon, a plaintiff living in St. Croix, who was a federal public defender in the U.S. Virgin Islands. “The lack of democratic accountability in U.S. territories violates America’s most basic values. This is especially true when you consider that the federal judges and federal prosecutors who enforce federal law in the territories are nominated by a president we can’t vote for and confirmed by a Senate where we lack any representation.”

According to the petition, justices are being asked to consider the following questions:

Whether a plaintiff has standing to challenge an unconstitutional federal statute even though a State could take action to remedy the unconstitutional treatment prescribed by federal law;

Whether the right to vote in federal elections is fundamental, warranting heightened scrutiny of discriminatory eligibility criteria, even if the right to vote in those federal elections is not expressly guaranteed in the Constitution; and

Whether a law fails to survive rational-basis review when the sole proffered government basis for rationality is an untenable post hoc justification and rests on facts that have not existed for decades.

“Petitioners’ exclusion from the basic right to participate in federal elections is especially injurious because there is no apparent rationale for it,” the petition states.

“The laws provide no justification for extending voting rights to former state citizens residing in favored territories or foreign countries while withholding the same rights from those who move to Guam, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

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