Dunn v. Blumstein/Dissent Burger

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, dissenting.

The holding of the Court in Pope v. Williams, 193 U.S. 621 (1904), is as valid today as it was at the turn of the century. It is no more a denial of equal protection for a State to require newcomers to be exposed to state and local problems for a reasonable period such as one year before voting, than it is to require children to wait 18 years before voting. Cf. Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970). In both cases some informed and responsible persons are denied the vote, while others less informed and less responsible are permitted to vote. Some lines must be drawn. To challenge such lines by the "compelling state interest" standard is to condemn them all. So far as I am aware, no state law has ever satisfied this [p364] seemingly insurmountable standard, and I doubt one ever will, for it demands nothing less than perfection.

The existence of a constitutional "right to travel" does not persuade me to the contrary. If the imposition of a durational residency requirement for voting abridges the right to travel, surely the imposition of an age qualification penalizes the young for being young, a status I assume the Constitution also protects.