Republican state lawmakers want election officials to verify the citizenship of anyone who registers to vote using a form provided by the federal Election Assistance Commission.
Howard Fischer PHOENIX — Republican state lawmakers are pushing to reopen a legal issue on which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Arizona nine years ago.Legislation that has been approved on a party-line vote by both the House and Senate would require election officials to try to verify the citizenship of anyone seeking to register to vote using a form provided by the federal Election Assistance Commission.
Only thing is, that citizenship proof to get a license wasn't required until 1996. So any license originally issued before then does not mean the holder is a citizen. But Tom Collins, the commission's executive director, said Hoffman did not include that same kind of provision in HB 2492. That, he said, suggests that lots of Arizonans who are still driving on licenses first issued in 1996, before there was proof of citizenship, will find themselves disenfranchised.The legislation is closely linked to the"Stop the Steal" movement that continues to insist Donald Trump won in Arizona.
But the justices said that Congress, in enacting the National Voter Registration Act, clearly intended to allow people who use a form created by the Election Assistance Commission to vote in races for federal offices. That form requires only an avowal of citizenship.That didn't seem to matter to the Republicans who decided to approve it anyway. And Speaker Pro-tem Travis Grantham, R-Gilbert, seems anxious to provoke yet another lawsuit.
And he contends that the 2013 court ruling requires only that those using the federal form be allowed to vote for members of Congress.
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