A federal judge has ruled that legislators behind the new Arizona law requiring counties to verify the status of registered voters does not discriminate.
“Considering the evidence as a whole, the court concludes that Arizona’s interests in preventing non-citizens from voting and promoting public confidence in Arizona’s elections outweighs the limited burden voters might encounter when required to provide (documentary proof of citizenship),” U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton wrote.
Bolton did however state that the requirement for individuals using a state registration form to include their state or country of birth violates a provision of the Civil Rights Act and a section of the National Voter Registration Act.
“The court finds that though it may occur, non-citizens voting in Arizona is quite rare, and non-citizen voter fraud in Arizona is rarer still,” the ruling states. “But while the voting laws are not likely to meaningfully reduce possible non-citizen voting in Arizona, they could help to prevent non-citizens from registering or voting.”
From Newsmax:
The lengthy ruling summarizes testimony from a bench trial in late 2023 at which experts testified about Arizona's history of voting discrimination. That included literacy tests effectively precluding Native American and Latino voters from participating and voter roll purges in the 1970s and 80s that created barriers for minorities to re-register to vote.
