9th Circuit Reinstates Arizona Voter Suppression Law
Arizona’s 2022 controversial voter registration and mail-in voting law will be reinstated due to a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Signed into law in June 2022, Senate Bill 1260 includes three harmful provisions: the cancellation provision, the felony provision and the removal provision.
- The cancellation provision requires county recorders to cancel a voter’s registration if they receive confirmation that the voter is registered to vote in another Arizona county;
- The felony provision makes it a felony to forward a mail-in ballot to a voter who may be registered in another state and
- The removal provision creates a process to remove voters from the state’s permanent vote-by-mail list if the voter is registered in another county.
As a critical swing state, Arizona has nearly 20 voting and election lawsuits filed just this cycle, making it one of the most litigious states.
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In September 2022, just two days after the law went into effect, a federal judge temporarily blocked the cancellation provision and the felony provision due to a lawsuit brought by voting rights groups. The judge found that both provisions likely violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution. The removal provision was allowed to go into effect.
Former Secretary of State Mark Brnovich (R) appealed the court’s decision partially blocking the law to the 9th Circuit, which heard the appeal last year.
In its ruling today, the court determined that the plaintiffs did not have standing for the cancellation provision because they failed to show how the law would directly harm the organizations’ core activities. One member of the three-judge panel dissented, writing that she would affirm the district court’s preliminary injunction because the “cancellation provision likely violates the National Voter Registration Act.”
While the plaintiffs did have standing for the felony provision, the panel unanimously ruled that “to knowingly provide a mechanism for voting to another person registered in another state” was not unconstitutionally vague. The judges determined that the phrase “mechanism for voting” in the context of the law suggests only illegal acts of voting, not voter outreach or registration. This negated the plaintiffs’ argument that the felony provision would criminalize their voter outreach and registration efforts.
The case was remanded back to district court where litigation will continue.