Election integrity groups urge SCOTUS to overturn ruling barring AZ voting safeguards

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(The Center Square) – A coalition of election integrity groups filed an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs in RNC v. Mi Familia Vota, with the groups urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the state of Arizona’s voter citizenship verification and overturn a Ninth Circuit ruling that barred Arizona’s proof of citizenship requirement and invalidated its work to remove noncitizens from the voter roll.

Jason Snead, executive director of one of the groups, Honest Elections Project, told The Center Square that “Arizona law takes critical steps to prevent noncitizens from voting and to remove them from the rolls if they are erroneously registered.”

“Once again, far-left activists are using the courts to twist federal law into a straitjacket that prevents states from securing their elections,” Snead said.

“Americans overwhelmingly agree: Noncitizens do not belong on the voter rolls and have no place in a voting booth,” Snead said.

Snead stated that “the Honest Elections Project urges the Supreme Court to side with Arizona and preserve the tools states need to ensure that elections are decided only by American citizens.”

Justin Riemer, president & CEO of another of the election groups, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, told The Center Square that “citizenship is a qualification for voting.

“If states are going to enforce that requirement, they have to be able to verify it,” Riemer said. “And when officials find noncitizens on the voter rolls, they should be able to act before an election, not after.” 

Lisa Dixon, executive director of Center for Election Confidence, another of the groups, told The Center Square: “American elections are for American citizens only. Period.”

"We should all support Arizona ensuring non-citizens can't register to vote and removing any non-citizens who end up on the voter lists,” Dixon said. “It's the law, and it's common sense.”

In their amicus brief, the three election integrity groups argue that the Ninth Circuit misread the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) in its ruling, thereby departing from the Supreme Court’s “precedents” and stripping states “of the authority to enforce the voter qualifications they alone may set.”

The amicus brief said that the Ninth Circuit “held that the NVRA forbids Arizona from requiring documentary proof of citizenship on its own mail voter registration form,” a holding that cannot be “squared with” NVRA or Supreme Court’s precedent.

“The NVRA does not prohibit Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement for its State Form,” the election groups argued.

Additionally, the brief states that the Ninth Circuit “erred in invalidating Arizona’s provision allowing for removal of noncitizens from voter rolls.” The Ninth Curcuit focused on the NVRA’s bar on removal programs “within 90 days of an election,” the brief said.

This “logic reaches further,” the brief argued. “On the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning, States could never remove from the voting rolls anyone who was included there improperly by virtue of being ineligible to register in the first place – noncitizens, minors, and fictitious persons alike.”

“For these reasons, the Court should reverse,” the brief said.