Arizona Passes Restrictive Proof of Citizenship Law
UPDATE: On March 30, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) signed House Bill 2492 into law.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On March 23, the Arizona Legislature passed House Bill 2492, a bill that requires all Arizonans to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote, endangering the voter registrations of large numbers of Arizonans. The bill passed both houses of the Legislature on party-line votes and is the state’s first voting bill to make it to the governor’s desk this year.
Currently, voters in Arizona who register using state registration forms have to prove citizenship. However, voters who register using federal registration forms under the National Voter Registration Act do not and are permitted to vote in federal elections. H.B. 2492 requires election officials to verify the citizenship of these “federal only” voters. If officials are unable to verify citizenship, the voter will not be allowed to register or vote until they provide documentary proof.
Furthermore, the bill also requires all election officials to provide the Arizona attorney general with a list of all voters who lack satisfactory proof of citizenship by Oct. 31, 2022. The attorney general would then investigate each of these voters’ citizenship status. Since Arizonans have only been required to prove citizenship since 2004, millions of Arizona voters who registered to vote before then likely do not have sufficient proof and could have their registrations improperly canceled.