Latino group: Supreme Court upheld Trump's 'Big Lie' in Ariz. voting ...

SectionsTVFeaturedMore from NBC Follow NBC News The leader of a Latino civil rights group denounced the Supreme Court's ruling on two restrictive Arizona voting laws, saying they are grounded in the "Big Lie of Donald Trump".On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the 2016 laws, 6-3, that experts say make it harder for people of color to challenge voting laws.Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the ruling makes clear that the high court is “woefully disconnected from social and historical reality, particularly when it comes to the experiences of minorities who continue to face daily depredations of basic rights in our country.”MALDEF led the fight to extend the 1965 Voting Rights Act to Mexican Americans and other Latinos.Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, accepted the legitimacy of concerns of voter fraud being committed by people who are ineligible to vote or that voters are being intimidated or coerced, Saenz said in a statement the group issued Thursday."We should all be disturbed that two-thirds of our justices would accept, without apparent question, legislative intentions that have more grounding in the Big Lie of Donald Trump than in any measure of demonstrable social-science truth," he said. He said his group is calling on leaders, including judicial leaders to reject even "implicit acquiescence in the false and damaging narrative that questions the legitimacy of a dramatically growing Latino vote in the United States."Alito said in his opinion that even though the laws may have a different impact on minority voters, that difference does not mean access to voting is not “equally open” or “does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote.”The law limiting who can drop off or deliver a person’s mail-in ballot, which was in effect for the 2020 election, struck at Latino and other groups who have helped increase Latino voter turnout by going door-to-door to speak to people who do not regularly vote or had never voted.Community groups like Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, have drawn many young Latinos to work as volunteers for the door-to-door canvassing, that also includes registering Latino voters.