Supreme Court Allows Arizona To Require Proof Of Citizenship For State Votes, But Not For Congressional Or Presidential

Supreme Court Allows Arizona To Require Proof Of Citizenship For State Votes, But Not For Congressional Or Presidential

Today the Supreme Court cleared the way for a provision of Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in state rolls, the first time the high court has weighed in on a voting dispute in the run-up to the presidential election.

The order means Arizona election officials must reject state registration forms if voters don’t provide documentation of citizenship.  In other words, Arizonans newly registering to vote for the coming election will have to provide copies of one of several documents, including a birth certificate or a passport, in order to prove their citizenship.

However, the justices kept on hold provisions of the law that could have disqualified voters who register separate federal forms from casting ballots in a presidential contest in person or by mail. In other words, Arizona voters can still register using a federal form, without proof of citizenship, and vote in the presidential contest.

Which, in light of recent revelations about noncitizens voting in various elections, and the Democrats’ push not to require voter id for presidential elections, is downright bizarre.

The high court’s 5-4 action, split along gender lines with men voting for and the women against, follows an emergency appeal by the Republican National Committee and lawmakers in Arizona, which is considered a key swing state in the election.

Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said they would have denied the request from Arizona lawmakers. What is notable however, is that Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch said they would have gone further and allowed the federal-form provisions of the 2022 law to take effect.

In other words, another SCOTUS appeal may be all it takes to prevent widespread cheating in the Nov presidential elections.

The decision did not include any legal reasoning, which is common in such emergency applications. But there were signs that the court was divided over the issue, and that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh may have split their votes between two factions.

Republicans have made noncitizen voting a focus in 2024, amid revelations that it is increasingly prevalent. They are pushing a national proof of citizenship bill, and a handful of states have measures related to noncitizen voting on November’s ballot.

Why is this such a critical issue? As noted on X, over 40,000 people have registered to vote in federal elections in Arizona without providing proof of citizenship. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in Arizona by just over 10,000 votes. In other words, in the handful of swing states that will decide the outcome of the Electoral College, where the margin of victory can be in the thousands or even hundreds of votes – every single illegal vote matters, which is why Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to preserve the ability for non-citizens to keep picking the next president!

While Republicans say the measures are necessary to prevent cheating and allowing noncitizens to cast ballots for Democrat candidates who allow millions of illegals to enter the country no questions asked, Democrats have decried the efforts arguing that they are intended to preemptively question the legitimacy of the upcoming election.

The efforts could result in eligible voters being removed from voting rolls, Democrats argue, which of course is idiotic since one needs an id for virtually any activity in the US, yet somehow voting should be excluded. They say the measures are ultimately about revving up conservative voters on the hot-button issues of immigration and voter fraud.

Speaking to the deep-left Washington Post, Richard Hasen, a UCLA law professor and alleged election law “expert”, said the court’s action would “make it moderately more difficult” for some voters and “for no good reason, because noncitizens are not voting in large numbers.” Well, if they are not voting in large numbers then it’s not an issue, and requiring those who do vote in large numbers to present an id is hardly a problem in a country where one needs an ID to enter a nightclub, buy a drink or drive a car.

Sensing which way the wind is blowing, Democrats are scrambling to make a huge issue out of the long overdue requirement to show some proof of citizenship when voting for, well, anything. Wendy R. Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice’s democracy program said the change in registration requirements three months before the election will result in a scramble for voters, election officials and voting rights groups.

“There needs to be a massive education effort for people who do not have documentary proof of citizenship for them to understand the correct way to register to vote if they want to be able to vote in the federal elections,” Weiser said. “There’s a real risk of confusion when there are two different voter registration forms.”

Well, Wendy, if people do not have documentary proof of citizenship – say a driver’s license – by voting age, one can safely say they are illegal aliens and have been carted into the US, mostly likely in the deep of night on Biden airlines, for one purpose and one purpose only: to cheat in the November election.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) agreed. He emphasized that state election officials would abide by the court’s decision and “implement these changes while continuing to protect voter access.”

Gina Swoboda, chair of the state Republican Party praised the decision, calling it a “tremendous victory for every Arizona voter who demands confidence that our elections are protected from non-citizen interference. The Supreme Court’s ruling ensures that Arizona can uphold the integrity of its elections.”

The Biden administration and a number of Arizona groups sued to block the law in July 2022, arguing that the federal National Voting Rights Act of 1993 and a 2018 consent decree between the state and the League of United Latin American Citizens, preempts the Arizona law’s requirements related to the federal voter registration form. The act requires voters to attest they are citizens under penalty of perjury but does not require them to submit proof.

Under that agreement, applicants who cannot show proof of citizenship on their state forms would still be registered to vote if their citizenship could be proved through documents from Arizona’s Transportation Department.

Those challenging the law also pointed to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that said states violate the Voting Rights Act if they reject a federal voter registration form by requiring a person to submit proof of citizenship. Republicans argued that the ruling does not apply in the current case.

A trial court judge blocked the Arizona law in 2023, citing the rationale put forward by the Biden administration and the state groups. The Republicans then asked the Supreme Court to put the district court’s decision on hold pending an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. They also requested a prompt ruling, saying the state has an Aug. 22 deadline to resolve litigation related to the election because counties need to begin printing ballots.

“The district court’s injunction is an unprecedented abrogation of the Arizona Legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections,” the Republicans wrote in their filing.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar argued on behalf of the Biden administration that “judicial intervention at this stage would undermine the orderly administration of the election.”

In a hilarious attempt to downplay the risk of millions of illegal aliens illegally voting in the November election, the abovementioned socialist rag Washington Post said that “noncitizen voting is illegal in federal elections and allowed only in some local municipalities and jurisdictions.”  Oh, so it’s only “some” then… and since it is illegal to do something, well clearly nobody will do it. Might as well avoid double checking. And while we are at it, we should also allow everyone to drive a car on the honor system, just tell the cop you have a driver’s license somewhere, just not with you.

Trump has repeatedly claimed, not without justification, that noncitizen voting cost him the 2020 election and narrowed his margin of victory in the 2016 presidential contest.

The punchline: a handful of cities, including that socialist hellhole Washington, D.C., allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections. And since nobody checks if those same noncitizens also vote in presidential elections (because “it is illegal to do so” so may as well trust them), it is guaranteed that millions of unqualified votes are cast each and every year for Democrat candidates, which is also why Democrats are doing everything in their power to allow half of Latin America in the US so actual legal votes are forever drowned out by the army of “free shit” illegals coming here for the promise of a better life, funding by other honest working taxpayers and legal American citizens, as long as they vote for Kamala.

The good news: this fall, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky and Idaho will vote on ballot measures to enact constitutional bans on noncitizen voting. How these measures are not ironclad in every state, boggles the mind.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/22/2024 – 18:00

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/supreme-court-allows-arizona-require-proof-citizenship-state-votes-not-federal