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.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 months ago

    Many European countries (at least the one I live in) have mandatory registration of residences which doubles as voter registration. In my country only homeless people and I think citizens living abroad have to explicitly register to vote.

    My understanding is that this is not so in the US, the government doesn’t reliably know where people currently live and whether they are entitled to vote, so most people have to register to vote.