Arizona laws ordering citizenship proof struck down by appeals court
A federal appeals court struck down provisions in two Arizona voting laws that sought to increase proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration.
A federal appeals court struck down provisions in two Arizona voting laws that sought to increase proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration, saying this week that parts of the law amounted to “voter suppression.”
The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, upholds the findings of a lower court that blocked the 2022 Arizona laws signed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican. It also sent one of the laws back to the district court to reconsider whether it was enacted with the intention to discriminate.
"We’re glad that the 9th Circuit sees these laws for what they are: anti-voter. These laws would have imposed severe, arbitrary and discriminatory burdens on Latino, Native and student voters in Arizona — undermining their freedom to vote and violating the Constitution and federal law,” said in a statement Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at Campaign Legal Center, which litigates to expand voter access.
The court said in its ruling Tuesday that the provisions it struck down violated the National Voter Registration Act, a 2018 consent decree between the League of United Latin American Citizens of Arizona and the state of Arizona regarding voting rights, the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Conservative groups and Republican state legislators pushed the laws during the 2022 midterm elections amid false allegations of mass voting by noncitizens.
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