The Republican National Committee is urging the Supreme Court to intervene in an Arizona election dispute this week and block up to 40,000 of the state’s registered voters from casting ballots in the presidential race.

Republican state lawmakers say these voters did not provide proof of their citizenship when they were registered and now they should be barred from from voting in person or by mail.

Danielle Lang, a voting rights attorney for the Campaign Legal Center who worked on the case, said she found that argument to be surprising.

“They are trying to upend the law as it has been in Arizona at least since 2018,” she said. “The voters who registered using the federal form were not asked to provide proof of citizenship.”

She said the Republican lawmakers and their attorneys who brought the case “didn’t cite a single example of a noncitizen who was enrolled. Not one. Why would someone who is not a citizen try to register? It’s a felony and would get you deported, just to cast one ballot.

  • MagicShel@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    Is there any particular reason to believe these voters are even primarily Democrats? Or are they just happy with the demographics of the last election and don’t care whose vote gets tossed as long as the needle doesn’t move?

    • cogman@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The prime Republican demographic is rich white christian men.

      Voters that don’t provide proof of citizenship are very likely to be poor. It’s a hoop to jump through that’s a lot harder when you don’t have money, time, and a car.

      I’ll also point out that it’s completely unnecessary as the great state of AZ has all the resources they’d need to go name by name and verify that these people are indeed citizens. Making them provide it during registration is a filler for the poor.

      Much like literacy tests were there to filter out black people.

      • candybrie@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        At this point, the prime republican demographic is uneducated white men. There are a lot more of them than the rich ones. And they vote for Trump even if they don’t usually vote.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        Nope. Nothing in the article states any demographic bias among these voters. But perhaps I’m just not understanding the identification being used. I assume by federal documentation it means like passport or military ID.

        Actually I guess passport would be proof of citizenship so I’m just OOTL why these people would be targeted.

        And I guess it says federal form not federal form of identification so I’m illiterate as well as confused.

        Last edit: So if I understand correctly there is a state form that requires proof of citizenship, and a federal form which does not. So if you don’t have ID, which is more likely for poor people, your only choice to register is using the federal form which would make them skew poorer and more likely minority, meaning Democrat. Is that right? That all makes perfect sense but I feel like it took a lot of extra work to get there.

        I must be having an autistic day because this is like the third time I just couldn’t get what someone was saying when it was clear to everyone else.