The Arizona Supreme Court unanimously Decided To allow residents who were allowed to vote based on decades-old government errors to vote in the November election despite not verifying their citizenship status.
“They have not provided any proof of citizenship.”
The court said it wanted to avoid disenfranchising large numbers of voters who had citizenship but whose status had not been certified due to government error.
As The Blaze News previously reported, Arizona's complex election law allows voters who have not provided proof of citizenship to be presumed to be citizens based on a driver's license held before 1996 and reissued after 2004.
“All of these people have proven themselves U.S. citizens under penalty of law. And, probably, almost all of them [are] “Fellow citizens of the United States,” Maricopa County Recorder Steven Richer, a Republican, said in a lengthy statement. About X Tuesday. “But they have not provided any proof of citizenship.”
Richer said those voters cannot vote in local elections unless they verify their citizenship status according to state law, but Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes disagrees. The two have asked the state Supreme Court to decide the case.
“The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendant. We have 100,000 registered voters who will continue to vote in this election. Thank God,” Richer said. He replied.
“I am grateful that the Arizona Supreme Court reviewed this case very promptly and professionally,” he added before thanking Fontes.
“It was a pleasure working with you on this. Thank you.” Fontes Responded.
Fontes said affected voters are likely to be Republican and between the ages of 45 and 65.
If the court had upheld Richer's argument, the voters in question would have been allowed to vote only in federal elections unless they took the additional step of proving their citizenship in order to vote in state and local elections in Arizona before November.
The Arizona Republican Party praised the ruling for preventing voter disenfranchisement.
“We are incredibly grateful to the state Supreme Court for protecting the voice of approximately 98,000 voters who were at risk of having their voting rights disenfranchised in this election,” said state party chair Gina Swoboda. statement On social media.
“I think that in itself speaks to the fact that we all recognize that the importance and the responsibility of making sure that the right to vote is available to all voters is greater than any particular political interest.”
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