America First Legal Sues To Remove Voters From Every Arizona County
In an amended complaint filed on Tuesday, America First Legal (AFL) — the legal group founded by former President Donald Trump advisor Stephen Miller — is suing all 15 counties in Arizona, challenging their practices for removing noncitizens from the voter rolls.
The lawsuit accuses the county recorders in Arizona of not removing noncitizens from each of their county’s voter registration rolls, in violation of state law. “They have failed to take the actions required by law to ensure that foreign citizens are removed from their voter rolls,” the lawsuit reads. “These failures cause voters to lose confidence in the integrity of our election system.”
Right-wing legal groups like AFL have filed dozens of anti-democracy lawsuits so far this cycle.
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Under federal law, noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections. And Arizona law requires that anyone registering to vote provide documentary proof of citizenship — the exception to this rule being anyone who registers to vote with a federal voter registration form, which doesn’t require documentary proof of citizenship. This has resulted in a unique situation for voter registration where Arizona voters who registered using the federal form — without providing a documentary proof of citizenship — can only vote in primary and general elections in federal races. But voters who used a state form without documentary proof of citizenship will not be registered to vote at all.
But the lawsuit alleges that because of the bifurcated system of voter registration — the state-required documentary proof of citizenship and federal registration systems — tens of thousands of alleged noncitizen voters who registered without documentary proof of citizenship through federal registration are illegally registered to vote.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently weighed in on litigation related to Arizona’s complicated voter registration system, partially rejecting the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Arizona Republicans’ request to reinstate parts of the state’s voter suppression law. Under the Court’s order, voters who were registered using the federal registration form will still be able to vote in the presidential election and by mail this November. However, the court granted the RNC’s request to allow Arizona to reject state voter registration applications submitted without documentary proof of citizenship.
Voter roll maintenance is a core function of any county recorders’ duties. But the lawsuit accuses all 15 county recorders of failing to provide proof that current voter registration lists are up to date and accurate.
AFL’s latest lawsuit makes grand accusations of noncitizens voting en masse, along with allegations of severely inaccurate voter rolls throughout Arizona — both of which are misinformation frequently peddled through right-wing channels. Despite frequent claims that noncitizens are illegally voting by the millions, numerous studies and analyses have found that instances of noncitizen voting are extremely rare.