The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, to the Supreme Court drew instant criticism from women’s rights groups that consider him a potential fifth vote to curtail or overturn the right to abortion. But ahead of his confirmation hearing — with midterms and the 2020 presidential election looming — voting rights advocates, alarmed about the trend toward disenfranchising young, poor and minority voters, are joining the #SaveSCOTUS and #StopKavanaugh movements.

“We had a really bad term in terms of voting rights,” said Kristine Lucius, executive vice president for policy at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a key backer of the Save SCOTUS campaign. “And it really shows how the court has shifted against access to the ballot. My sad prediction is it could get even worse.”

“Kavanaugh’s track record on democracy raises serious concerns,” said Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies for public policy organization Demos. “A Justice Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court could set us back when it comes to voting rights.”

The nomination of Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy came just two days before the Supreme Court ruling in the Ohio voter purge case, Husted v. Randolph Institute. The 5-4 decision upheld Ohio’s mass purges of “inactive” voters from the registration rolls, reversing a lower court finding that the policy violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), enacted in 1993 to make it easier to register to vote and maintain registration.

View photos Voting rights advocates rally outside the Supreme Court as the court hears oral arguments in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute case in Washington, D.C., in January. (Photo: Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock) More

Ohio’s voter purge followed the state’s policy: Registered voters who didn’t vote for a two-year period were sent notices. If, in the following four years, they failed to respond, vote or engage in any voter activity — like updating their registration or address — their names were removed from the rolls and they were required to reregister to vote.

“There are many reasons people choose not to vote in any given federal election,” said Lucius. “And the notion that you would respond to a piece of paper that you receive in the mail, probably folded in with all your junk mail, doesn’t seem like it really values the importance of voting rights.”

The challenge to the state’s procedures relied on a provision of the NVRA that says the failure to vote in previous elections cannot be the sole basis for purging people from the rolls. The Supreme Court decision held that Ohio’s multistep purging process did not violate federal laws.

Two weeks after the Ohio ruling, the court dealt another setback to voting rights groups and civil rights organizations in Abbott v. Perez. In that case, the high court reversed a lower court’s findings that a 2013 Texas redistricting plan was “tainted” by bias and intentionally discriminated against Latino and African-American voters to dilute their voter strength. Holding there was insufficient evidence proving “discriminatory intent,” the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that just one of the many districts was racially gerrymandered. But civil rights advocates argue that proving “intent” is nearly impossible.

“Discrimination in all spheres, including in voting, is usually done by stealth,” said Bains. “When people intentionally discriminate based on race, they don’t usually tell you they’re doing it. Folks who are discriminating for whatever reason, whether animus against people of a certain race or to gain partisan advantage, have gotten smarter over the years.”

View photos An election official checks a voter’s photo identification at an early voting poll site in Austin, Texas, in 2014. (Photo: Eric Gay/AP) More