A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel of three justices issued an order on Thursday allowing part of Arizona’s new law requiring proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections to remain in effect during appeals litigation. However, the panel upheld the trial court’s decision blocking some of the law.
Consequently, those who request an application to vote only in federal elections will not be required to show proof of citizenship. This could substantially affect the presidential race and highly contentious federal races like Arizona’s U.S. Senate race between Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake.
State Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) and the Senate Republicans, who were intervenors in the case, issued a statement on X. “This is a victory for election integrity in Arizona,” Petersen said. “Only U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote in our elections. It sounds like common sense, but the radical left elected officials in our state continue to reject this notion, disrespecting the voices of our lawful Arizona voters. We are grateful the court is upholding this provision in our law, and it’s time for Congress to take action to ensure only lawful U.S. citizens are voting in federal races.”
🚨BREAKING: Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of election integrity! Voters in Arizona who register with the state and do not provide proof of citizenship will be rejected.
"This is a victory for election integrity in Arizona. Only U.S. citizens should be… pic.twitter.com/IjNCv9lSmz
— AZSenateRepublicans (@AZSenateGOP) July 18, 2024
HB 2492, sponsored by State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), required proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, with the exception of voting in congressional elections, which the Supreme Court held in 2013 was pre-empted by federal law.
The panel stated in its order, “We conclude that appellants in No. 24-3188 have satisfied the standard for a stay pending appeal with respect to the portion of the injunction barring enforcement of A.R.S. § 16-121.01(C). We conclude that appellants have failed to satisfy the standard for a stay pending appeal in all other respects.”
The decision will change a loophole that county recorders used to get around the law. According to tucson.com, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said he and 14 other county recorders will stop converting voters who fill out a state form to federal-only voters if they fail to provide proof of citizenship. Instead, the applicants will be required to show proof of citizenship. The law made it a felony for election officials to register voters without proof of citizenship.
Those who select the federal form are only required to check a box avowing under penalty of perjury that they’re a U.S. citizen and eligible to vote in Arizona. This has resulted in considerable criticism since there is no mechanism to verify their attestations of citizenship.
Richer, who started a PAC for GOP election fraud deniers, responded on X to the platform’s owner Elon Musk about his concern regarding illegal immigrants registering to vote in elections in Arizona, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Richer told Musk that there are 20,768 registered voters on the federal-only list in Maricopa County and about 30,000 statewide. He admitted that “these people attest that they are U.S. Citizens, but they have not provided documented proof.” He also admitted that the Social Security Administration does not “check citizenship. It’s used to check proof of identity.”
This means there could be as many as 30,000 non-citizens illegally voting in Arizona’s federal races.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton and who previously struck down most of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law SB 1070 in 2010, said in her decision last year that the law conflicted with federal law the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which requires only attesting that a federal voter is a U.S. citizen.
This was based on a 2013 Supreme Court decision. In 2004, Arizonans passed Prop. 200, which required proof of citizenship to register to vote. However, the Supreme Court in 2013 carved out a loophole in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona. The 7-2 majority ruled that Arizona could not enforce the citizenship rule for voters in congressional elections since the NVRA pre-empts the state in this area.
Due to a settlement in 2018 that former Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan made with a left-wing organization that sued the state, illegal immigrants no longer had to show proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. AZGOP Chair Gina Swoboda, who heads the Voter Reference Foundation, said at a conference in 2022 that Reagan should not have caved; Arizona probably would have prevailed.
According to tucson.com, the Senate Republicans’ attorney Thomas Basile said only 14.3 percent of those who used the federal form are registered Republicans, despite the fact Republicans comprise 34.5 percent of registered voters in the state.
Greg Blackie, deputy director of policy for the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, said due to that 2018 change, the number of non-citizens illegally voting in Arizona went from 1,600 in 2018 to 11,600 in 2020 — more than Trump lost to Joe Biden in the state.
Analysis by The Washington Times found that illegal immigrants are three times more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. A study from 2014 published at Old Dominion University found that enough non-citizens vote “to change important election outcomes, ”including “Electoral College votes and Senate races.” In the 2008 presidential race, almost 15 percent of non-citizens voted.
The Arizona Senate is not challenging the use of the federal-only form for those voting in congressional races since Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona held that, unlike presidential races, overseeing this was left to Congress to regulate.
The appeals panel set a schedule of July and August deadlines for the parties to file their follow-up appeal briefs and said a hearing would be placed on the court’s calendar in September.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to rachel.r.alexander@gmail.com.
