PHOENIX — A judge federal confirmed the provisions of the new laws of Arizona that would require counties to verify the status migratory of the voters registered voters who have not presented proof of having U.S. nationality and will compare voter registry information with various government databases.
In a ruling, District Judge Susan Bolton concluded that Arizona lawmakers did not discriminate in passing the laws, and that the state has an interest in preventing voter fraud and limiting voting only to those eligible to vote.
“Taking into account the evidence as a whole, the court concludes that Arizona’s interest in preventing non-citizens vote and promoting public confidence in Arizona elections outweighs the limited inconvenience voters may experience when required to provide (documentary proof of nationality),” he wrote.
However, Bolton said the requirement that people using a state registration form include their state or country of birth violates a provision of the Civil Rights Act and a section of the National Voter Registration Act. Doing so, she explained, would result in only naturalized citizens being investigated based on the county recorders’ subjective belief that a naturalized person is not a citizen.
The lengthy ruling summarizes testimony from a trial held in late 2023 in which experts testified about Arizona’s history of voter discrimination. That included literacy tests that effectively excluded Native American and Latino voters from participating, and voter roll purges in the 1970s and 1980s that created barriers for minorities to reregister.
That was in the past, the judge wrote, noting that there was no evidence presented by the plaintiffs that reflected an intention by lawmakers to suppress the voter registrations of members of minority groups or naturalized citizens when they considered the bills in 2022.
The laws were approved amid a wave of proposals following the results of the 2020 elections, which Republicans claim were irregularities.
In an earlier ruling, Bolton blocked a requirement in Arizona law that people using a federal voter registration form provide additional proof of nationality if they want to vote for president or use the state’s vote-by-mail system. The judge had ruled that those provisions were subject to a 1993 federal voter registration law.
She had also ruled that a 2018 consent decree prevents Arizona from enforcing its new requirement to reject any state voter registration form that is not accompanied by proof of nationality. The order says Arizona cannot reject an otherwise valid state voter registration form if proof of nationality has not been submitted, but must register that applicant for federal elections.
Source: With information from AP
