A federal judge on Thursday recognized the obvious truth that the Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship is logical and in the best interest of the state’s voters.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton rejected President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice contention that the laws protecting Arizona’s elections discriminated against its citizens.
Instead, she agreed that legislators acted properly in erecting a wall around the system to guard against those who would vote illegally.
Biden’s DOJ along with the Democratic National Committee and voting rights groups filed suit against the bills. The proposals, deemed to be racially charged by the litigants, were signed into law by then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R).
President Joe Biden narrowly won the swing state in 2020.
Federal witnesses in the trial used historical evidence of past discrimination to argue against the election integrity bills. They recalled literacy tests of years gone by along with voter roll purges they said discriminated against minorities.
Another court has upheld a proof of citizenship law. Arizona's election law was found constitutional by District Judge Susan Bolton. The court found that such laws are not inherently discriminatory and that there is no evidence of discriminatory intent. https://t.co/bzCqcAkMrP
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 1, 2024
Bolton wrote, “Considering the evidence as a whole, the court concludes that Arizona’s interests in preventing non-citizens from voting and promoting public confidence in Arizona’s elections outweighs the limited burden voters might encounter when required” to prove their citizenship.
The news was hardly all positive for those seeking to ensure election integrity.
Bolton proceeded to strike down or limit other state laws passed to guarantee that only eligible voters are on the rolls. One was a key provision of HB 2243.
The statute instructed county recorders who have “reason to believe” people attempting to vote are not citizens to investigate. They would then remove that person from eligibility if they are proven to be non-citizens.
That person’s information would be compared to the SAVE Program of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Then they could be verified to be eligible or ineligible to vote.
Though Bolton allowed county recorders to properly investigate, she ruled that the SAVE database only has naturalized citizens instead of those native-born.
Thus, she declared, it violated the National Voter Registration Act and Civil Rights Act. Though Bolton rejected some federal arguments against Arizona’s attempt to secure elections, she simultaneously made it harder to enforce these provisions.
