A divided Supreme Court partially granted an emergency request from the Republican National Committee to enforce an Arizona law that requires documentary proof of citizenship to vote, specifically letting the state require such proof when registering to vote using a state form.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have fully granted the Republican application. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have fully denied it.
The GOP went to the high court after a federal appeals court panel approved a district court injunction against the law. The emergency application, from the RNC and the Arizona state Senate president and House speaker, sought to pause (or “stay”) the injunction immediately, to the extent that it makes the state (1) accept voter registration applications via a state form without documentary proof of citizenship and (2) allow voters who have not provided documentary proof of citizenship to cast ballots for president or to vote by mail.
The Supreme Court’s order on Thursday rejected the Republican request when it comes to voting for president or voting by mail.
Opposing the Republicans’ bid, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told the justices that “a stay this close to an election will create chaos and confusion, and in turn undermine the credibility of our elections.” The federal government also opposed the stay, noting that “judicial intervention at this stage would undermine the orderly administration of the election, risking the disfranchisement of thousands of voters who have already registered to vote using the federal form.” The “federal form” refers to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to “accept and use” a standard federal form to register voters for federal elections. That form requires voters to attest under penalty of perjury that they’re U.S. citizens but doesn’t make them to submit documentary proof. Yet the 2022 Arizona law at issue requires federal form users to submit documentary proof to vote for president or by mail, and makes voters submit such proof when they register using an alternative state form. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for updates and expert analysis on the top legal stories. The newsletter will return to its regular weekly schedule when the Supreme Court’s next term kicks off in October.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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