By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a Republican-led bid to revive voter restrictions in Arizona that would stiffen proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registrants and purge state voter rolls of alleged non-U.S. citizens.
The justices took up a Republican appeal of a lower court’s decision to halt provisions of Arizona’s law because they were found to violate a federal voting registration statute.
The court is expected to hear arguments in the case during its next term, which begins in October.
President Donald Trump’s administration backed key elements of the Republican-led appeal.
Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2022 adopted new restrictions requiring applicants who use a state-issued voter registration form to show documented proof of U.S. citizenship. Under the state measure, failing to produce such documentation would prevent someone from being registered to vote in federal or state elections.
Citizenship proof could include a passport or birth certificate or other types of documents, under the measure.
Another Arizona measure required election officials to regularly purge from state voter rolls registrants whose American citizenship could not be confirmed.
When Republican then-Governor Doug Ducey signed the legislation in 2022, he said the requirements balanced voting accessibility with election security.
“Election integrity means counting every lawful vote and prohibiting any attempt to illegally cast a vote,” Ducey said.
Critics have said the Arizona measure adds extra mandates for voting that unfairly target Latino, Native American and student voters. Those groups tend to favor Democratic candidates.
Democrats have accused Republicans of pursuing voter suppression measures in a bid to lower voter turnout and disenfranchise specific groups of people who traditionally lean Democratic. Republicans have said their proposals are intended to protect election security. Trump and his allies have made false claims about widespread voting fraud.
The administration of Democratic former President Joe Biden sued to block the Arizona restrictions in 2022, arguing the measure is superseded by a 1993 federal law called the National Voter Registration Act.
That federal law requires registrants for U.S. elections to check a box declaring their American citizenship under penalty of perjury, but not show documentary proof of citizenship.
A separate legal challenge argued that the Arizona law violated a 2018 court-approved settlement requiring state election officials to register voters who lack documented proof of U.S. citizenship for federal elections.
The Republican National Committee and Arizona’s top Republican lawmakers intervened to defend the law. Voting rights and other advocacy groups continued the litigation after Biden left office last year.
Phoenix-based U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in September 2023 sided with the Biden administration and other plaintiffs in their challenge to Arizona’s proof of citizenship requirements.
A three-judge panel on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reviewed the case on its legal merits upheld Bolton’s ruling.
The Supreme Court in 2024 partly granted a request from Arizona Republicans to revive the voter registration restriction.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
Comments