The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from a group of Tennessee voters regarding Amendment 1 to the state’s constitution, a 2014 ballot measure that eliminated the right to an abortion from the document.
The petitioners argued that the vote counting method was fundamentally unfair and skewed the voting in support of the amendment.
The court’s decision allows the ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website], which upheld the constitutionality of the voting method, to stand.
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III supported the court’s decision not to review the case under the contention that “a state, and not a federal court should decide how votes are counted under its own Constitution” and that 72,000 votes in favor of the amendment should stand.
(Published by Jurist, October 3,2018)