# Dunn v. Blumstein > Supreme Court of the United States · March 21, 1972 · 405 U.S. 330 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9424778 ## Case - **Full name:** DUNN, GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE, Et Al. v. BLUMSTEIN - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** March 21, 1972 - **Citations:** 405 U.S. 330; 92 S. Ct. 995; 31 L. Ed. 2d 274; 1972 U.S. LEXIS 75 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Burger - **Judges:** Blackmun, Marshall, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, White, Blackmün, Burger, Powell, Rehnquist - **Cited by:** 1,668 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9424778 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - concluding that the state interest in “knowledgeable” voters did not justify a duration- al residence requirement for voting because “there is simply too attenuat- ed a relationship between the state interest in an informed electorate and the fixed requirement that voters must… - concluding that the state interest in “knowledgeable” voters did not justify a durational residence requirement for voting because “there is simply too attenuated a relationship between the state interest in an informed electorate and the fixed requirement that voters must hav… - stating that it is permissible for a state to “requir[e] a person who enters the State to make a ‘declaration of his intention to become a citizen before he can have the right to be registered as a voter and to vote in the State.’ ” (quoting Pope v. Williams, 193 U.S. 621, 24 … - explaining that strict scrutiny applied, despite an earlier durational-residency-requirement case No. 05-3044 Stewart, et al. v. Blackwell, et al. Page 35 using a less stringent standard of review, because the Tennessee law “penaliz[ed]” only people who had recently exercised … - finding residential duration requirements for voter registration did not pass heightened scrutiny and rejecting the argument that the requirements are justified by the interest in ensuring that voters share a common interest in matters pertaining to the community ## Opinion text 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 seem *364 ingly 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. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9424778. Public record. Not legal advice.