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The US Supreme Court has declared a tightening of the electoral law in the state of Arizona to be legal.
The Democrats had sued the Republican-ruled state against the regulations because they believed they were discriminatory.
In her opinion, the rules make voting more difficult and thus particularly affect members of ethnic minorities and blacks.
However, the majority of the six Conservative Supreme Court justices rejected this line of argument, according to a ruling released on Thursday.
It states that the corresponding Arizona law was not passed "with the intention of racial discrimination".
Voting is generally very easy in Arizona.
The minority of the three more liberal judges, however, considered the provisions to be unconstitutional.
Contested suffrage
In the USA, the right to vote, which is largely shaped by the states, is extremely competitive. Many Republican states have already passed regulations or are pursuing regulations that critics believe would make voting difficult. When the hurdles to voting are higher, it is often the minorities who stay at home in the US - and these populations are often more likely to vote for Democrats. Republicans, on the other hand, argue that their reforms are only about making electoral fraud more difficult. However, this is very rare in the USA - and can sometimes be punished with long prison sentences.
US President Joe Biden was "deeply disappointed" at the court's verdict.
Biden referred to the dissenting opinion of the liberal judge Elena Kagan, according to which the verdict cemented "significant racial discrimination."
His government will continue to work for a democracy that reflects the will of all citizens.
Biden's Democrats are trying to get a nationwide electoral law through Congress to make voting more difficult.
The project has so far failed because of the Republicans' blockade minority in the Senate.
"Our democracy depends on it," wrote Biden on Twitter.
In the specific case before the Supreme Court there were two provisions in Arizona.
According to this, votes of citizens who vote in a polling station that is not assigned to them are considered invalid.
Another rule prohibits politicians and activists from collecting ballot papers in order to cast them closed at a polling station.
slü / dpa