RNC Asks Supreme Court to Reinstate Arizona’s Citizenship Check Voting Laws

An elections worker inspects a mail-in ballot in Phoenix on Nov. 6, 2022. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is asking on the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate an Arizona law requiring voters to prove their U.S. citizenship for the upcoming presidential election.

In an application for emergency relief filed on Aug. 8, the RNC asked Justice Elena Kagan to block a previous lower-court ruling that put the state law on hold.

The Committee centered much of its filing around how the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handled the matter.

The laws at the center of the debate are H.B. 2492 and H.B. 2243—collectively known as the “Voting Laws”—which were passed by the Arizona Legislature in 2022.

Among other things, they require that people who register to vote in Arizona using a state form provide “satisfactory” proof of citizenship or residency, such as a birth certificate, to be eligible to vote.

The laws also require individuals to include their state or country of birth and mandate that counties conduct citizenship checks and remove non-citizens from the rolls.

Although a district judge partially blocked the law in 2023 after ruling that federal laws, not state, take precedence when it comes to proof of citizenship for voters, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit later stayed the injunction.

In July, another panel of judges granted a request from Republicans to reinstate some but not all parts of the laws.

However, the same panel turned down the RNC’s bid to require election officials to check records from the Social Security Administration and other databases to ensure individuals who do not provide proof of citizenship are actually citizens.

In its Aug. 8 filing, the RNC said the Ninth Circuit’s reversal violates what’s known as the Purcell principle, which bars federal courts from enjoining the enforcement of state election laws with an election impending.

“The principle recognizes the important interests state officials have in protecting their elections and avoiding voter confusion,” the RNC wrote. “But the Ninth Circuit turned this principle against the enforcement of state election-integrity laws.”

It further argued that the district court’s injunction is an “unprecedented abrogation of the Arizona Legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections.”

Voting Rights Group Sue to Block Arizona Laws

The district court’s judgment will also “irreparably harm” the RNC, while a stay in the matter “would not inflict any countervailing harms on the plaintiffs or the public interest,” the Committee said in its filing.

Republicans are asking for the court to rule on the issue by Aug. 22.

While Arizona lawmakers have said the voting laws are needed to prevent voter fraud, voting rights groups—including the Arizona-based Mi Familia Vota and Living United for Change in Arizona—quickly filed lawsuits against both measures.

In court filings, the groups argued the measures were discriminatory, confusing, and unnecessary, among other things.

Current Arizona law states that, in order to be qualified to vote in Arizona, a person “must be a United States citizen, a resident of Arizona, and at least eighteen years of age.”

Section 2. A of the state’s election law specifically says: “No person shall be entitled to vote at any general election, or for any office that now is, or hereafter may be, elective by the people, or upon any question which may be submitted to a vote of the people, unless such person be a citizen of the United States of the age of eighteen years or over, and shall have resided in the state for the period of time preceding such election as prescribed by law, provided that qualifications for voters at a general election for the purpose of electing presidential electors shall be as prescribed by law.”

The law notes that “citizen” is defined as “persons of the male and female sex.”

In a statement, the RNC called the application for emergency relief a “critical legal step in ensuring Americans decide American elections,” and said it is important that “only citizens vote in our elections, especially by mail.”

If successful, the move will allow Arizona to “enforce proof of citizenship requirements” in the upcoming presidential election, the RNC said.

“Requiring proof of citizenship is common sense and fundamental to preserving the integrity of our elections – especially in our country’s most important presidential election,” said RNC Chairman Michael Whatley. “This application in the Supreme Court is pivotal to ensuring that Arizonans’ votes are not canceled by non-citizens. ”

“Non-citizen voting is illegal and we are taking every possible action to ensure American elections are decided solely by Americans,” Whatley added.

The Epoch Times has contacted Mi Familia Vota and Living United for Change in Arizona for comment.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.