The Republican National Committee (RNC) and members of Arizona’s state Legislature filed a motion on July 1 to stay a federal court order to block certain voters who registered with a federal voter registration form from voting in the November elections.
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement that the emergency motion was filed because the RNC believes that “noncitizen voting compromises our elections” and is “committed to stopping it.”
At issue is an Arizona election law that was passed in 2022, HB 2492, which made it legal to require proof of citizenship to partake in elections in Arizona. A second 2022 law, HB 2243, which mandated the reporting of the number of voters in the state who didn’t list the status of their citizenship, has also been challenged.
Voting rights groups filed lawsuits against both measures, and U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton found that parts of the legislation circumvented federal voting laws, although other portions of the two laws were upheld.
One of the groups that filed the lawsuit, Campaign Legal, described the two provisions as “discriminatory” and claimed that one “denied the freedom to vote to Arizonans who did not list their birthplace on the state registration form” and the other requires “county officials to investigate naturalized Arizonans’ citizenship status without good cause.