4 BRNOVICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE Syllabus processes,” courts must consider the opportunities provided by a State’s entire system of voting when assessing the burden imposed by a challenged provision. Thus, where a State provides multiple ways to vote, any burden associated with one option cannot be evaluated without also taking into account the other available means. P. 18. (E) The strength of the state interests—such as the strong and entirely legitimate state interest in preventing election fraud— served by a challenged voting rule is an important factor. Ensuring that every vote is cast freely, without intimidation or undue influence, is also a valid and important state interest. In determining whether a rule goes too far “based on the totality of circumstances,” rules that are supported by strong state interests are less likely to violate §2. Pp. 18–19. (ii) Some factors identified in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, were designed for use in vote-dilution cases and are plainly inapplicable in a case that involves a challenge to a facially neutral time, place, or manner voting rule. While §2(b)’s “totality of circumstances” language permits consideration of certain other Gingles factors, their only relevance in cases involving neutral time, place, and manner rules is to show that minority group members suffered discrimination in the past and that effects of that discrimination persist. The disparate-impact model employed in Title VII and Fair Housing Act cases is not useful here. Pp. 19–21. (4) Section 2(b) directs courts to consider “the totality of circumstances,” but the dissent would make §2 turn almost entirely on one circumstance: disparate impact. The dissent also would adopt a leastrestrictive means requirement that would force a State to prove that the interest served by its voting rule could not be accomplished in any other less burdensome way. Such a requirement has no footing in the text of §2 or the Court’s precedent construing it and would have the potential to invalidate just about any voting rule a State adopts. Section 2 of the VRA provides vital protection against discriminatory voting rules, and no one suggests that discrimination in voting has been extirpated or that the threat has been eliminated. Even so, §2 does not transfer the States’ authority to set non-discriminatory voting rules to the federal courts. Pp. 21–25. (c) Neither Arizona’s out-of-precinct policy nor its ballot-collection law violates §2 of the VRA. Pp. 25–34. (1) Having to identify one’s polling place and then travel there to vote does not exceed the “usual burdens of voting.” Crawford, 553 U. S., at 198. In addition, the State made extensive efforts to reduce the impact of the out-of-precinct policy on the number of valid votes ultimately cast, e.g., by sending a sample ballot to each household that includes a voter’s proper polling location. The burdens of identifying