Arizona has a statute that will go into effect next year that will require voters to provide evidence of their citizenship in order to cast a ballot in federal elections, and the Justice Department is suing Arizona over this.
The DOJ said that House Bill 2492 violates both the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act in a court lawsuit submitted on Tuesday.
On January 1st 2023, the law is expected to go into force. According to the complaint, the measure would remove thousands of people from the voter lists.
By removing needless regulations that previously made it more difficult for eligible voters to access the registration lists, the National Voter Registration Act has helped states move in the right direction for over three decades.
By establishing illegitimate and pointless conditions that will exclude qualified voters from the registration lists for specific federal elections, Arizona has approved a bill that reverses progress.
HB 2492 was made a law by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey in March. He declared at the time that any attempt to vote illegally would be against the law.
He described it as a fair strategy that respects Arizona’s tradition of facilitating voting without compromising election security.
An Arizona ballot initiative in 2004 gave officials the authority to request citizenship documentation from anybody registering to vote. The US Supreme Court eventually overturned one of the measure’s provisions.
The DOJ claimed in its court complaint that the new law also broke a 2013 high court decision involving a different Arizona lawsuit, which stated that the state couldn’t require potential voters using the federal form to submit anything other than what was specified on the form, such as proof of citizenship.
Attorney General Mark Brnovich of Arizona stated that he intends to oppose the case.
