By Maria Ortiz
Aug 22, 2024, 11:57 PM EDT
The Supreme Court of the United States issued a mixed ruling on Thursday on a controversial electoral law Arizona that will affect the right to vote in the 2024 presidential election in that state.
The Supreme Court justices on Thursday rejected in a divided 5-4 vote a Republican initiative that could have prevented more than 41,000 Arizona voters from casting their ballots for president in November in the key disputed state, but at the same time allowed some parts of a law to be implemented that requires proof of citizenship to vote.
The Supreme Court partially accepted the Republican National Committee’s request to force Arizona to enforce measures that require people to show proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.
In what is likely to be one of many election-related disputes that will come before the court ahead of the November election, The judges allowed one of three provisions of the state law to apply.
The Supreme Court left in place a lower court ruling barring enforcement of the law requiring voters to document their U.S. citizenship to cast ballots in this year’s presidential election, but allowed the state to enforce a requirement that potential voters document their citizenship before register to vote using a state registration form.
In other words, in a partial victory for Republicans, proof of citizenship will be required of new voters in some circumstances. Voters who cannot document their citizenship status may register using a federal form.
The Biden administration argued that the provisions that the Supreme Court kept on hold violate a federal law called the National Voter Registration Act. That law requires those registering to vote in federal elections to certify that they are U.S. citizens, but does not require documentary evidence.
Arizona’s top election official, Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, warned that the requirements will be reactivated as the November elections approach would confuse voters and create “undue hardship” for him and the county election administrators.
“My concern is that changes to the process should not occur so close to an election, as it creates confusion for voters,” Fontes said in a statement.
Arizona is a critically important battleground in this year’s presidential electionJoe Biden won the state by just over 10,000 votes in 2020. Donald Trump won it in 2016.
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