[EL] Brnovich and Polling Place Location Challenges

[Steven John Mulroy (smulroy)]

If Brnovich governs vote denial/vote suppression cases, and Gingles governs method of election and districting cases, what of challenges to the placement or sizing  of polling places?  Courts dealing with such challenges pre-Brnovich had just taken an overall  totality/Senate factors approach, since the Gingles preconditions didn't apply.  It strikes me that these kinds of cases might be relatively unaffected by Brnovich.  Polling places were around in 1982.  There's no anti-fraud rationale for locating them in ways inconvenient to minority voters, or making precincts larger (and thus lines longer) in minority areas. I guess the factor re: {availability of the vote in the system as a whole} may be relevant, as in "Yeah, the precinct sizes and locations are all skewed to favor White voters, but you've always got mail voting," or some variation thereof.  But by and large, assuming a significantly large disparate impact from the sizing and location of polling places in a jurisdiction, such a claim is relatively untouched by Brnovich,  no?