Key Points:

• US Supreme Court to review Arizona’s proof of citizenship law for presidential voter registration

• Lower court rulings have limited states’ ability to enforce citizenship and residency requirements

• Arizona’s 2022 law requires election officials to regularly check voter eligibility

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether Arizona can legally block people who do not provide “documented proof of citizenship” from registering to vote for president.

In a brief order, the justices said they want to review a lower court ruling restricting the ability of states to enforce the citizenship and residency requirements.

Nothing in the June 29 order guarantees that justices as a whole are interested in overturning Arizona’s 2022 law, but what it does show is that there are at least four who are willing to hear arguments. 

Still, the order opens the door to the possibility that more than 43,000 Arizonans who are currently registered to vote could lose that right.

None of that is expected to change in time for the November election as the earliest the justices could hear the case is October.

But Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, in a statement, still sought to reassure voters.

“Arizona voters should continue registering and voting under current rules,” he said.

But a decision from the courts could make a difference in 2028.

Arizona has required proof of citizenship to register since voters approved a ballot measure in 2004.

At the same time, though, the National Voter Registration Act requires states to accept and use a registration form prepared by the Federal Election Assistance Commission. And that form requires only that applicants avow, under penalty of perjury, that they are U.S. citizens.

Then came the changes approved in 2022 by Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature. Most notably, one requiring that anyone registering the vote must provide proof of citizenship, regardless of how they register and what form they use.

Mi Familia Vota and several rights groups filed suit, calling the requirement “a baseless assault on Arizona’s election system based on a conspiracy theory that non-citizens are voting, despite a persistent lack of credible evidence.”

In a 2024 ruling, the 9th Circuit agreed to allow Arizona to enforce the proof-of-citizenship requirement — but only for those who try to register using the state form. The judges also barred the state from imposing such a requirement on those who use the federal form.

Those who use the federal form and don’t also provide proof of citizenship, however, are precluded from voting in state elections.

What’s significant, though, is they are permitted to vote in federal elections. That includes both the presidential race as well as for members of Congress.

The Republican National Committee, in its petition to the Supreme Court, contends nothing in the NVRA precludes Arizona from requiring such citizenship proof, even for federal elections, regardless of the form someone has used to register.

Overall, the number of Arizonans entitled to vote only in federal elections is small — 43,385 as of the most recent statistics from the Secretary of State’s Office.

But what is also true is that in 2020 Joe Biden outpolled Donald Trump by just 10,457 votes, winning the state’s 11 electoral votes and, ultimately, the presidency. In fact, Trump’s loss by that margin was cited by Republicans when they pushed through the 2022 law to expand the proof-of-citizenship requirement to all voters.

And while there were claims that the election was affected by votes from noncitizens, none of them were ever proven.

Instead, state and county election officials have said that most of those who choose to use the federal form do so because they do not have easy or immediate access to things like a birth certificate which can be used to prove citizenship. And that, they said, often involves college students away from home and members of Native American tribes.

What the justices decide about federal-only voters could end up being moot if Congress approves the SAVE Act — short for Safeguard American Voter Eligibility — being promoted by Trump. If approved, it would amend federal laws to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote, regardless of the method.

But the measure has stalled in Congress.