On Thursday, the Republican National Committee petitioned the Supreme Court to preserve a portion of an Arizona statute that mandates a voter’s documentary evidence of citizenship in order to register to vote in the state. This statute would compel such documentation to vote in the presidential election and for mail-in ballots.
The request highlights a topic that Republicans have sought to highlight in the 2024 campaign, even though there is little proof that voting by non-citizens poses a serious risk to elections.
Proponents of voting rights and Democrats argue that the restriction is needless and could prevent some individuals from exercising their right to vote because they lack simple access to documents that establish their citizenship, such as birth certificates.
Republicans in Arizona are trying to get a provision back into law that would make it mandatory for people to provide citizenship documents when they register to vote in Arizona. Also, they want to make it such that you need to be a citizen to vote for the president.
In order to circumvent a 2013 Supreme Court decision that limited when states could impose such demands, Arizona appears to have carefully crafted the proof of citizenship requirement in the 2022 voter law. This is especially true for individuals registering to vote through the federal registration form, which does not currently necessitate documentary proof of citizenship.
On Thursday, Republicans argued before the Supreme Court that the lower court rulings halting the Arizona law’s provisions constituted a “unprecedented abrogation” of the power of the state legislature “to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections.”
The document was sent to Justice Elena Kagan, who is in charge of hearing urgent appeals from the western region of the nation.
The case is around a 2018 consent order that came out of a different lawsuit. It outlined certain procedures for handling state registration forms where the registrant has failed to produce proof of citizenship. If Arizona’s DMV database already has records establishing their citizenship, the consent decree states that those Arizonans should be able to vote in federal elections and also be registered to vote in state elections.
Election authorities would be required to reject such registrations completely under the 2022 law, which would eliminate those protocols.
The trial court’s decision to uphold the consent decree procedures for state-form registrations and strike down the necessity of proof-of-citizenship for vote-by-mail and presidential elections is noteworthy.
The requirement to provide proof of citizenship for state-form registrations was temporarily reinstated by a panel of judges on the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the requirement was subsequently placed back on hold by a separate group of judges a few days later while an appeal was being heard.
The purpose of this expedited appeal, according to that appellate panel, is to “reinstate the status quo in Arizona as it has been since 2018.” It also made reference to the Purcell doctrine, which conservative Supreme Court justices often uphold, which forbids judges from altering voting procedures in the days leading up to an election.
State GOP leaders and the RNC have filed a new petition in which they claim the 9th Circuit has violated the principle by protecting “state election-integrity measures from last-minute interference.”
The applicable statutes were passed by the Arizona Legislature over two years ago. Republicans said that state officials were unable to enforce the statute due to the Ninth Circuit order.
