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AZ Supreme Court keeps election law initiative on the ballot

Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services//August 18, 2026//

A voter places a ballot in an election voting drop box in Mesa, Ariz., Friday, Oct. 28, 2022. (AP Photo / Ross D. Franklin)

AZ Supreme Court keeps election law initiative on the ballot

Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services//August 18, 2026//

PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that a package of proposed changes to Arizona election law may go before voters in November, rejecting opponents’ claims that the measure contained too many provisions.

Proposition 144 would add a provision to the Arizona Constitution stating that only citizens can vote. It would also restrict spending by foreign nationals to influence elections and require all voters to show identification when casting a ballot.

“These provisions are interrelated because each regulates the same context — the conduct of public elections,” Justice John Lopez wrote for the majority on Tuesday. Lopez said it’s irrelevant that each proposed change could be presented to voters separately.

In their dissent, Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer and Justice Maria Elena Cruz said two of the changes that Prop. 144 would make are not sufficiently interrelated to be presented to voters as a single package. They include the provisions that would require early ballots to be tabulated on site when dropped off and another that would give lawmakers broad powers to enact new election law.

“Voters should be permitted to consider [the two sections] separately,” they wrote. And they said putting them in a single package violates state constitutional requirements prohibiting disparate subjects from being put into a single ballot measure.

The ruling addresses only whether Prop. 144 will be on the ballot. What voters will be told about the measure remains to be decided.

The conservative advocacy group America First Legal contends that Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is trying to mislead voters — and using words designed to get them to reject the GOP-crafted ballot measure.

A trial judge rejected those claims. Now America First Legal is seeking Supreme Court review.

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