Arizona’s new voting laws that require proof of citizenship are not discriminatory, a US judge rules
PHOENIX — A federal judge is upholding provisions of new Arizona laws that require counties to verify the status of registered voters who have not provided proof of U.S. citizenship and to compare voter registration information against various government databases.
In a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton concluded that Arizona lawmakers did not discriminate when they passed the laws and that the state does have an interest in preventing voter fraud and limiting voting to those eligible to vote.
“Considering the evidence as a whole, the court concludes that Arizona’s interests in preventing noncitizens from voting and promoting public confidence in Arizona elections outweigh the limited burden voters may experience when they are required to provide documentary proof of citizenship,” she wrote.
However, Bolton said the requirement for individuals using a state registration form to list their state or country of birth violates a provision of the Civil Rights Act and part of the National Voter Registration Act. Doing so, she explained, would result in the investigation of only naturalized citizens, based on county recorders’ subjective beliefs that a naturalized individual is a noncitizen.
The lengthy ruling summarizes testimony from a trial in late 2023 in which experts testified about Arizona’s history of voting discrimination. That included literacy tests that effectively excluded Native American and Latino voters from participating, and purges of voter rolls in the 1970s and 1980s that erected barriers for minorities to re-register to vote.
That was the past, the judge wrote, noting that there was no evidence presented by the plaintiffs showing lawmakers’ intent to suppress voter registrations of members of minority groups or naturalized citizens when they considered the bills in 2022.
The laws were passed amid a wave of proposals introduced by Republicans in the wake of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Arizona over Donald Trump.
In an earlier ruling, Bolton blocked a requirement in Arizona law that people using a federal voter registration form must provide additional proof of citizenship if they want to vote for the president or use the state’s vote-by-mail system. The judge had ruled that those provisions were trumped by a 1993 federal voter registration law.
She had also ruled that a 2018 consent decree bars Arizona from enforcing the new requirement to reject state voter registration forms that are not accompanied by proof of citizenship. The order states that Arizona may not reject an otherwise valid voter registration form without proof of citizenship, but must register such a candidate for federal elections.
Arizona must accept the federal registration form, but anyone who does not provide proof of citizenship can only vote for president, U.S. House or Senate. The federal form requires people to swear that they are U.S. citizens, but there is no proof requirement.
Voters who vote only at the federal level have been the subject of political battles since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Arizona cannot require documentary proof of citizenship from 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.
After then-Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed the measures into law after passing them on party-line votes.
“Election integrity means counting every legal vote and prohibiting any attempt to cast a ballot illegally,” Ducey wrote in a March 2022 letter when he approved one of the proposals.
The laws were challenged by voting rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice. They argued that the new rules would make registering voters more difficult. Some also suggested that the statutes were an attempt to put the issue back before a more conservative Supreme Court.
While supporters said the measures would only affect voters who have not shown proof of citizenship, voting advocates argued that hundreds of thousands of people who had not recently updated their voter registration or driver’s licenses could be affected.
The ruling states that Arizona has required documentary proof of citizenship since 2005, and the new laws supplement that requirement to ensure non-citizens do not register to vote or remain on the voter rolls.
One of the two measures Bolton explored would require state election officials to check registration information against various government databases to try to prove citizenship and report anyone they can’t find to prosecutors.
“The court finds that, although it may occur, noncitizen voting is quite rare in Arizona, and voter fraud by noncitizens is even rarer in Arizona,” the ruling states. “But while the voting laws are not likely to meaningfully reduce noncitizen voting in Arizona, they could help prevent noncitizens from registering or voting.”