Supreme Court rejects GOP push to block 41K Arizona voters, but partly OKs proof of citizenship law – San Diego Union-Tribune
SCOTUS on Voter ID in Arizona
1. The Ruling:
- The Supreme Court issued a split 5-4 decision on Arizona's voter ID law.
- The court allowed Arizona to enforce part of the law requiring proof of citizenship for new voter registrations using state forms.
- However, the court blocked the provision that would have prevented already-registered voters from voting by mail or for president without providing proof of citizenship.
2. Key Points:
- The law in question is H.B. 2492, enacted in 2022.
- The ruling partially overturns lower court decisions that had blocked the entire law.
- The decision was made on an emergency appeal filed by state and national Republicans.
3. Implications for Voters:
- New voters registering in Arizona will now need to provide proof of citizenship (e.g., birth certificate, passport) when using state registration forms.
- Approximately 41,000 already-registered voters (as of August 9, 2024) who haven't provided proof of citizenship can still vote in federal elections, including for president and by mail.
4. Political Context:
- The law was passed by Republicans following Biden's narrow victory in Arizona in 2020 (by less than 11,000 votes).
- It's part of a wave of voting measures introduced by Republicans nationwide after the 2020 election.
5. Legal Arguments:
- Republicans argued the law protects against fraud and falls within state authority to determine voter qualifications.
- Opponents, including the Biden administration, argued it violates civil rights and could disenfranchise minority voters.
6. Potential Repercussions:
- The ruling may impact voter registration processes in Arizona, potentially making it more challenging for some to register.
- It could affect voter turnout, especially among groups like military service members, students, and Native Americans.
- The decision may influence similar laws in other states and future legal challenges related to voter ID requirements.
- The case highlights ongoing tensions between state authority in elections and federal voting rights protections.
7. Ongoing Legal Battle:
- The Supreme Court's decision is not final; the legal fight will continue in lower courts.
- The ruling's timing close to the 2024 election adds significance to its potential impact.
This decision represents a partial victory for Republicans in tightening voting requirements while still protecting some voting access for already-registered voters. It's likely to fuel ongoing debates about balancing election security with voting rights accessibility.
Supreme Court rejects GOP push to block 41K Arizona voters, but partly OKs proof of citizenship law – San Diego Union-Tribune
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a Republican push that could have blocked more than 41,000 Arizona voters from casting ballots for president in the state that Democratic President Joe Biden won by less than 11,000 votes four years ago.
But in a 5-4 order, the high court allowed some enforcement of regulations barring people from voting if they don’t provide proof of citizenship when they register.
The justices acted on an emergency appeal filed by state and national Republicans that sought to give full effect to voting measures enacted in 2022 following Biden’s narrow win over Republican Donald Trump.
The court did not detail its reasoning in a brief order. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have allowed the law to be fully enforced, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett would have joined with the court’s three liberals in fully rejecting the push, the order states.
The legal fight will continue in lower courts.
National and state Republicans had asked the Supreme Court to get involved in a legal fight over voter registration restrictions that Republicans enacted in Arizona in 2022 following Biden’s thin victory in the state in 2020.
The court’s action came after a lower court had blocked a requirement that called for state voter registration forms to be rejected if they are not accompanied by documents proving U.S. citizenship. A second measure, also not in effect, would have prohibited voting in presidential elections or by mail if registrants don’t prove they are U.S. citizens. Federal law requires voters to swear they are U.S. citizens under penalty of perjury but does not require proof of citizenship either to vote in federal elections in person or cast ballots by mail.
An appellate panel of three Trump appointees initially blocked the lower court ruling in part and allowed enforcement of a provision dealing with state voter registration forms. But another appellate panel voted 2-1 to keep both provisions on hold, with two Bill Clinton appointees allowing the voter registrations to go forward over the dissent of a Trump appointee.
The measures were passed on party-line votes and signed into law by then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, amid a wave of proposals that Republicans introduced around the country after Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump, including in Arizona.
For state and local elections, voters must provide proof of citizenship when they register or have it on file with the state. Since that isn’t a requirement for federal elections for Congress or president, tens of thousands of voters who haven’t provided proof of citizenship are registered only for federal elections.
There were 41,352 of those voters registered as of August 9 in Arizona, Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said.
Fontes warned in a court filing that an order in favor of the state and national Republicans this close to the November election “will create chaos and confusion.”
The voters most affected would include military service members, students and Native Americans, Fontes said. About 27% of those voters are registered Democrats and 15% are Republicans. More than half, 54%, are registered independents, according to state data.
Voting rights groups and the Biden administration had sued over the Arizona laws.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach led Republican attorneys general in 24 states in supporting the restrictions, saying the “case threatens to continue chipping away Arizona’s authority to secure its own elections.”
Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, who along with Senate President Warren Petersen had asked the court to take up the issue, said in a statement that the order was “a step in the right direction to require proof of citizenship in all our elections.” Toma and Peterson are both Republicans.
Federal-only voters have been a subject of political wrangling since the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Arizona cannot require documentary proof of citizenship for people to vote in national elections. The state responded by creating two classes of voters: those who can vote in all races and those who can vote only in federal elections.
One of the new laws sought to further divide voters, allowing votes in congressional elections without proof of citizenship, but denying the vote in presidential contests.
The 2022 law has drawn fierce opposition from voting rights advocates, who described the statute as an attempt to get the issue back in front of the now more conservative Supreme Court.
Proponents say the measure is about eliminating opportunities for fraud. There is no evidence that the existence of federal-only voters has allowed noncitizens to illegally vote, but Republican skeptics have nonetheless worked aggressively to crack down on federal-only voting.
The Legislature’s own lawyers had said much of the measure was unconstitutional, directly contradicted the earlier Supreme Court decision and was likely to be thrown out in court.
___
Billeaud reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this story.
Originally Published:
Justices allow Arizona to enforce proof-of-citizenship law for 2024 voter registration
EMERGENCY DOCKET
on Aug 22, 2024 at 4:23 pm
The Republican National Committee asked the justices to allow Arizona to continue to enforce a law that would bar those who do not show proof of citizenship from voting. (Wolfgang Schaller via Shutterstock)
A divided Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon granted a request from the Republican National Committee and the Republican leaders of Arizona’s legislature to reinstate a state law that requires residents to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote using a form provided by the state. The court turned down a request, however, to reinstate the portion of the same law that would bar voters who register using a standard federal form from voting for president or by mail unless they provide proof of citizenship.
The vote was 5-4. In a brief unsigned order, three of the court’s conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch – indicated that they would have granted the RNC’s application to fully reinstate the law.
Four other justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – indicated that they would have denied the RNC’s request in its entirety, keeping in place a ruling by a federal district court in Arizona blocking the state from enforcing the law.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not publicly signal how they voted, but they must have provided the two remaining votes necessary to revive the portion of the law dealing with the state form.
The RNC and the legislative officials had asked the justices to act by Aug. 22, to give the state enough time to print ballots before the election.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires states to “accept and use” a standard form to register voters for federal elections. That federal form requires would-be voters to swear, under penalty of perjury, that they are U.S. citizens, but they are not required to provide proof of citizenship.
The Arizona law at the center of the dispute is known as H.B. 2492. Enacted in 2022, it directs county officials to attempt to verify the U.S. citizenship of anyone who attempts to register using the federal form. If the officials cannot do so – for example, because they do not have access to databases that would provide information about citizenship – the applicant must submit proof of citizenship (such as a passport or birth certificate) to vote for president or by mail. In a separate provision, the law also requires anyone who registers using Arizona’s state form to submit proof of citizenship.
Soon after the law was enacted, the federal government and a group of private plaintiffs, including voting-rights groups and Democrats, went to federal court in Arizona to challenge H.B. 2492. They argued that the NVRA supersedes Arizona’s requirement to submit proof of citizenship to vote for president or by mail.
The private plaintiffs also contended that a 2018 consent decree barred the state from enforcing the requirement to provide proof of citizenship to register using state forms.
Last year a federal district court in Arizona agreed with the United States and the private plaintiffs that the NVRA trumps the federal-form provisions, and that the consent decree barred Arizona from enforcing the state-form provision. In a final order entered in May of this year, the district court prohibited the state from enforcing any of the provisions.
The Republican National Committee and Republican leaders of the state senate and house joined the case to defend the law. On July 18, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit granted their request to put the portion of the district court’s order dealing with the consent decree and the state-form provision on hold. But the court of appeals left in place the part of the order holding that the NVRA supersedes the federal-form provisions.
On Aug. 1, a different three-judge panel reinstated the district court’s order, prompting the RNC and legislative leaders to come to the Supreme Court on Aug. 8, asking the justices to put the district court’s order on hold “to the extent it requires Arizona to (1) accept state-form voter registration applications lacking documentary proof of citizenship and (2) allow voters who have not provided documentary proof of citizenship to cast ballots for president or by mail.”
Pointing to what it characterized as the 9th Circuit’s “disruptive displacement of election rules enacted by the Arizona Legislature in 2022,” the RNC contended that the Purcell principle – the idea that courts should not change election rules during the period of time just prior to an election – warranted the Supreme Court’s intervention.
The RNC also criticized the district court’s order as an “unqualified abrogation of the Arizona legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections.”
First, it contended, by pointing to the 2018 consent decree as a reason to prohibit the state from enforcing the proof-of-citizenship requirement for its own voter registration forms, the court of appeals “ignored the established rule that a consent decree generally yields to a change in the law, including a change in statutory law.” The 9th Circuit’s reasoning, the RNC suggested, “presents significant separation-of-powers concerns” because it “would mean that a judgment entered unilaterally by an executive branch officer indefinitely displaced the Legislature’s power.”
Second, the RNC continued, requiring proof of citizenship for voters who want to register using the federal form and then vote by mail provision protects against fraud. But the district court’s ruling “expands a statute focused on voter registration to require Arizona to expand mail-in voting,” the RNC complained. And the NVRA does not preempt state law with regard to voting for president, the RNC added, because the Constitution only gives Congress limited power over the selection of presidential electors. “That authority does not permit Congress to displace state rules for registering to vote in presidential elections.”
Represented by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the Biden administration had urged the justices to turn down the RNC’s request “to the extent it seeks a stay of the portion of the injunction based on the United States’ NVRA claim.” The RNC’s “cursory discussion of the relevant issues provides no sound basis for a stay,” Prelogar insisted, particularly when it is seeking relief based on the premise that a federal law is unconstitutional.
More specifically, Prelogar continued, the Supreme Court in 2013 ruled – in a case involving Arizona – that states violate the NVRA if they reject a federal form based on the voter’s failure to provide proof of citizenship. States cannot require a voter to provide any additional information beyond what the federal form requires, she wrote. The NVRA therefore supersedes “Arizona’s requirement that voters who register with the federal form submit documentary proof in order to vote for President or vote by mail.”
Arizona, represented by Attorney General Kris Mayes, opposed the RNC’s request. Mayes acknowledged the state’s interest in defending and enforcing the law, but she countered that the “State also has an interest in smoothly administering its laws, especially for elections.” Indeed, she wrote, “putting the district court’s injunction on hold now” would be “destabilizing,” because the state has not been enforcing the provisions at the center of the dispute.
The Democratic National Committee and the Arizona Democratic Party echoed this sentiment in their brief, observing that the relief sought by RNC and Republican legislators would also “mean people who voted for a presidential candidate or by mail earlier this year — including in the July 30 primary just two weeks ago — would suddenly be unable to do so.”
This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.
Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Justices allow Arizona to enforce proof-of-citizenship law for 2024 voter registration, SCOTUSblog (Aug. 22, 2024, 4:23 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/08/justices-allow-arizona-to-enforce-proof-of-citizenship-law-for-2024-voter-registration/
Supreme Court Allows Arizona to Enforce, for Now, Law Tightening New Voter Registrations
But the justices kept blocking a provision that bars already-registered residents from voting by mail or for president until they prove their citizenship.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Arizona, at least for now, to toughen some voting requirements, saying that people registering to vote before the coming election must show proof of citizenship.
The decision, issued in a terse, unsigned order, handed a partial victory to Republicans who supported a 2022 Arizona law imposing new restrictions on voting. But the court declined to allow Arizona to put into effect another part of that law, which could have prohibited tens of thousands of voters who are already registered from participating in the presidential election or casting any ballots by mail, unless they provided proof of citizenship.
The decision did not include any legal reasoning, which is common in such emergency applications. But there were signs that the court was divided over the issue, and that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh may have split their votes between two factions.
The order did not mention either. But it said four justices had wanted to keep the state from enforcing both measures: Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. It named three as wanting to let the state put both provisions into effect: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch.
The mixed decision means Arizonans newly registering to vote for the coming election will have to provide copies of one of several documents, including a birth certificate or a passport, in order to prove their citizenship.
Disputes over voting requirements in Arizona have raged since the 2020 presidential election, when Donald J. Trump narrowly lost the state. Since then, Republican lawmakers have carried out a partisan audit of the election vote count, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized the vote-by-mail system that became more prominent because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Republican National Committee, along with state lawmakers, had asked the Supreme Court to weigh in after lower federal courts had blocked enforcement of the new legal limits.
The dispute turns on whether the requirement to show proof of citizenship violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and a 2018 consent decree between the state and the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organizations.
Under that agreement, applicants who cannot show proof of citizenship on their state forms would still be registered to vote if their citizenship could be proved through documents from Arizona’s Transportation Department.
A lower court had blocked both the restriction involving new registrations and the restriction barring already-registered voters from casting ballots by mail or for president if they did not show proof of citizenship. Republicans — the Republican National Committee and some state lawmakers — appealed, asking that the state be allowed to enforce the rules for now as litigation plays out.
Republicans have argued that blocking their tighter election rules interfered with the Arizona Legislature’s constitutional power to determine the manner of voting in federal elections and “to safeguard the purity of all elections in Arizona.”
Such requirements, they have added, were needed to prevent noncitizens from voting; allowing unqualified people to register and cast ballots would dilute the voting rights of legitimate voters and undermine confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.
Latino voting-rights groups, Democratic officials from Arizona and the Biden administration have challenged the measures, contending that the rules violate the civil rights of immigrants and minority voters. Such requirements, they say, could lead to thousands of minority voters being removed from voter rolls.
One of several plaintiff briefs to the justices argued that the Republicans’ theory was “novel and anti-democratic” and urged the court not to intervene so late in the election “to compel the rejection of voters.”
“The available remedy for the R.N.C. is to appeal to Arizona voters, not to block them from political participation,” the brief argued.
State and national Republican officials had urged the justices to act swiftly in part so that if the justices did permit the new legal requirements to be enforced, state election officials would have time to prepare to carry them out. The Arizona secretary of state had a deadline of Thursday to resolve related litigation so that counties could print their ballots in time.
A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 23, 2024, Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: Justices Allow Arizona to Enforce, for Now, Law That Tightens Voter Registrations. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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