The US Supreme Court case overturned restrictions in the Texas Constitution from voting in Texas.
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From the majority decision.
A provision of the Texas Constitution prohibits "[a]ny member of the Armed Forces of the United States" who moves his home to Texas during the course of his military duty from ever voting in any election in that State "so long as he or she is a member of the Armed Forces." 1 [380 U.S. 89, 90] The question presented is whether this provision, as construed by the Supreme Court of Texas in the present case, 2 deprives the petitioner of a right secured by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court of Texas decided that it does not and refused to issue a writ of mandamus ordering petitioner's local election officials to permit him to vote, two Justices dissenting. 378 S. W. 2d 304. We granted certiorari, 379 U.S. 812 .
The petitioner, a sergeant in the United States Army, entered the service from Alabama in 1946 at the age of 18.[380 U.S. 89, 91] The State concedes that he has been domiciled in Texas since 1962, and that he intends to make his home there permanently. He has purchased a house in El Paso where he lives with his wife and two children. He is also the proprietor of a small business there. The petitioner's post of military duty is not in Texas, but at White Sands, New Mexico. He regularly commutes from his home in El Paso to his Army job at White Sands. He pays property taxes in Texas and has his automobile registered there. But for his uniform, the State concedes that the petitioner would be eligible to vote in El Paso County, Texas.
Texas has unquestioned power to impose reasonable residence restrictions on the availability of the ballot. Pope v. Williams, 193 U.S. 621 . There can be no doubt either of the historic function of the States to establish, on a nondiscriminatory basis, and in accordance with the Constitution, other qualifications for the exercise of the franchise. Indeed, "[t]he States have long been held to have broad powers to determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised." Lassiter v. Northampton Election Bd., 360 U.S. 45, 50 . Compare United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 ; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651 . "In other words, the privilege to vote in a State is within the jurisdiction of the State itself, to be exercised as the State may direct, and upon such terms as to it may seem proper, provided, of course, no discrimination is made between individuals in violation of the Federal Constitution." Pope v. Williams, supra, at 632.
This Texas constitutional provision, however, is unique. 3 Texas has said that no serviceman may ever [380 U.S. 89, 92] acquire a voting residence in the State so long as he remains in service.
. . . We deal here with matters close to the core of our constitutional system. "The right . . . to choose," United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 314 , that this Court has been so zealous to protect, means, at the least, that States may not casually deprive a class of individuals of the vote because of some remote administrative benefit to the State. Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633 . By forbidding a soldier ever to controvert the presumption of nonresidence, the Texas Constitution imposes an invidious discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. "[T]here is no indication in the Constitution that . . . occupation affords a permissible basis for distinguishing between qualified voters within the State." Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 380 .
We recognize that special problems may be involved in determining whether servicemen have actually acquired a new domicile in a State for franchise purposes. We emphasize that Texas is free to take reasonable and adequate steps, as have other States, 6 to see that all applicants for the vote actually fulfill the requirements of bona fide residence. But this constitutional provision goes beyond such rules. "[T]he presumption here created is . . . definitely conclusive - incapable of being overcome by proof of the most positive character." Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U.S. 312, 324 . All servicemen not residents of Texas before induction come within the provision's sweep. Not one of them can ever vote in Texas, no matter how [380 U.S. 89, 97] long Texas may have been his true home. "[T]he uniform of our country . . . [must not] be the badge of disfranchisement for the man or woman who wears it." 7
