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The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take up a long-running dispute regarding a pair of Arizona voting laws that require Americans to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to vote.
The justices granted the Republican National Convention’s (RNC) request to review an appeals court decision that found the state laws at issue were preempted by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) and blocked them from enforcement.
The lower court also ruled that the NVRA, which regulates voter registration for federal elections, prohibits Arizona from cancelling the registration of suspected noncitizens within 90 days before an election.
The central questions are whether Arizona can demand that prospective voters submit documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when registering with a state form and whether the state can implement a program to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls.
The Supreme Court is also set to weigh whether Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement violates a 2018 consent decree between the secretary of state and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the largest Latino civil rights group in the country.
At issue are Arizona House Bills 2492 and 2234, a pair of measures adopted in 2022 that prohibit registered voters from casting ballots for president or by mail if they have not provided proof of U.S. citizenship, among other restrictions.
It came amid heightened scrutiny over the 2020 election, in which President Trump made repeated unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.
Several groups immediately challenged the laws in federal court, arguing that they were unconstitutional and could prevent thousands of registered voters from casting a ballot. One lawsuit brought by two nonprofits organizations also alleged that one of the laws was enacted with discriminatory intent.
A district court judge found that the regulations violated part of the Civil Rights Act and the NVRA, but state legislators did not intentionally discriminate against certain voters when crafting the bills.
A divided panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of the lower court’s ruling, excluding the non-discriminatory purpose finding.
The issue has come before the justices before. The high court reinstated part of the state law that mandated officials reject state voter registration forms for individuals who did not provide proof of citizenship in a 5-4 ruling ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The latest iteration before the court came under three separate cases.
The RNC’s petition deals only with the proof-of-citizenship and voter-roll removal requirements, whereas a petition from Arizona Republican lawmakers Warren Peterson and Steve Montenegro also asks if the mail-in voting prohibition is also preempted by federal law and whether the district court erred by concluding that the law was not motivated by “discriminatory animus.”
A third petition by the state and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) is much narrower, asking the court to review whether Promise Arizona had standing to sue and the Ninth Circuit’s finding on discriminatory intent.
The Peterson and Montenegro case was denied, as was the Arizona petition.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments during its next term, which begins in October. A ruling is likely next year.
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