Supreme Court to weigh Arizona citizenship proof rule for voters
The justices will test Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship rule as nearly 34,000 federal-only voters sit on the rolls and 8,000 already voted in November 2024 but could not vote in state races.
The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether Arizona can keep one of the nation’s toughest voter-registration barriers, a documentary proof-of-citizenship rule that could affect tens of thousands of registered voters. The case, Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota and related appeals, will be heard in the court’s next term, which begins in October.
Arizona’s disputed laws were enacted in 2022 through House Bills 2243 and 2492. They require documentary proof of citizenship for certain state voter-registration forms, direct county recorders to check citizenship status for some registered voters, and limit vote-by-mail or presidential-election voting for registrants who have not verified citizenship. The state is the only one with a citizenship-documentation requirement of this kind.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked key parts of the laws in February 2025, finding they were preempted by the National Voter Registration Act. The Supreme Court had already allowed Arizona, in an August 2024 emergency order, to enforce the proof-of-citizenship rule for people using the state registration form, but not for those using the federal form.
The Trump Justice Department backed Arizona’s position in the litigation. On the other side are the Mi Familia Vota and Voto Latino plaintiffs, along with the Democratic National Committee and the Arizona Democratic Party, which argue the rules suppress eligible voters and conflict with federal law. The Republican National Committee, the Arizona House speaker and Senate president, and two nonprofit organizations had standing to pursue their appeals, the 9th Circuit held.
The Brennan Center for Justice counted almost 34,000 actively registered federal-only voters in Arizona as of December 2024, a figure larger than Katie Hobbs’s 17,117-vote margin in the 2022 governor’s race. It also counted nearly 8,000 of those voters who cast ballots in Arizona in November 2024 but could not vote in state races. The center’s tally put voters of color at 54% of Arizona’s federal-only voters, compared with 36% of the rest of the electorate.
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