Republican legislative leaders are hoping a new administration in Washington will help the state block anyone who does not provide proof of citizenship from voting in future presidential races.

In a letter to Pam Bondi, the new attorney general, House Speaker Steve Montenegro and Senate President Warren Petersen want the Department of Justice to now take their side in the fight over who can cast a ballot. That would be a departure from the position taken by her agency under the Biden administration.

Even if Bondi goes along, that does not guarantee the state will win its case. There are others involved in the lawsuit who contend Arizona is violating the rights of individuals to cast a ballot in presidential races.

But a switch in the official position by the Department of Justice still could affect the outcome.

At the heart of the fight is a 2004 Arizona law, the first in the country, that requires people to provide “documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

Courts have upheld the state’s ability to enact such a mandate for state and local elections. The fight has been over how much power the state has to control federal elections.

The key is the National Voter Registration Act. It requires that states “accept and use” the form designed by the Election Assistance Commission to let people register to vote in federal elections.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 2013 ruling authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, said Arizona cannot demand more than what is required on the federal form.

In 2022, however, lawmakers sought to pick a new fight.

Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, conceded that the state has no control over people registering to vote in congressional races. That is because the U.S. Constitution allows Congress to control the time, place and manner of congressional races.

But Hoffman argued – and got Republican colleagues to agree – that the state still has a role to play in who can vote for president.

He bases that on laws that allow each state to choose how to select its presidential electors. And, strictly speaking, when Arizonans cast a ballot, they are voting for a slate of electors pledged to a specific candidate, not for the candidate himself or herself.

Last year, a divided U.S. Supreme Court agreed to let Arizona demand proof of citizenship to vote in presidential elections – but only of those who sign up to vote using the state’s own registration form.

But the justices upheld a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocking the state from including a line in the state form requiring would-be registrants to list the place of their birth.

More significantly, that order barred the state from imposing proof of citizenship requirements on those who use the federally designed form. And they would not let the state enforce another provision which said those who use the federal form cannot cast a ballot by mail.

That ruling, however, covered only the 2024 election. The justices sent the case back to the 9th Circuit to determine whether the state has a right to demand proof of citizenship from everyone who wants to vote in presidential races – including those using the federal form.

“The Biden administration teamed up with various left-wing groups in prosecuting a wide-ranging legal assault on these commonsense safeguards,” Montenegro and Petersen wrote to Bondi in seeking to have her agency side with them and against the groups that challenged the proof of citizenship requirements. “The arguments advanced by the Biden administration’s Justice Department conjoined a heedless disregard of clear constitutional text with a radical rewriting of federal law.”

No evidence was ever presented in the case showing that the people who have signed up in Arizona without presenting proof of citizenship are, in fact, not eligible to vote. That, however, did not keep the GOP leaders from arguing that Bondi needs to side with them to overturn the findings about who has to provide proof of citizenship.

“To the extent these misguided positions prevail in the 9th Circuit, the states’ constitutional authority to protect the integrity of their electoral systems will be gravely undermined,” they wrote. “Given the imminence of the 9th Circuit’s rulings, we respectfully urge your office to review this case and apprise the court of its current position at the earliest feasible opportunity.”

Aside from the unverified claims by the Republicans about non-citizens voting, the whole issue has other political overtones.

In legal filings, the Republican National Committee, seeking to defend the citizenship proof requirement, challengers pointed out that Republicans make up about 34% of the state’s registered voters. But the figures from the Secretary of State’s Office at the same time showed just 14.3% of these federal-only voters signed up as Republicans.

Another 27.4% are Democrats, with 53.6% listed as “party not designated” and the balance among minor parties.

And all that follows the fact that Trump lost to Joe Biden in Arizona in 2020 by 10,457 votes, far fewer than the number of federal-only voters, currently listed at nearly 49,000.

As to why there are that many voters without citizenship proof, Aaron Thacker, spokesman for Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, said there is evidence that the list includes students attending state universities, many from within the state, who did not bring their birth certificates or other proof of citizenship with them but may have an interest in voting in federal races. He said the ability to sign up using the federal form gives them that option.