The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up a case involving a pair of election-integrity laws in Arizona, including a requirement to show proof of citizenship for a state voter registration form.
The high court will hear the case Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota in its next term, which will deal with two key questions about Arizona election law. The first question presented to the justices asks whether either the National Voter Registration Act or a federal consent decree prohibits the state from asking for proof of citizenship when using a state form to register to vote, while the second question asks whether the NVRA bars Arizona from checking for and cleaning its voter rolls of noncitizens within 90 days of a federal election.
The RNC asked the Supreme Court in February to hear the case, imploring the justices to reverse a federal appeals court ruling that it claims “thwarted both mechanisms for enforcing Arizona’s citizenship qualification.”
“For years, Arizona has taken common-sense steps to enforce its citizenship qualification and secure its elections,” the petition from the RNC said. “Each time, it has had to defend those steps from federal lawsuits. ‘This case,’ like those before it, ‘concerns Arizona’s efforts to enforce that qualification.’ Specifically, it concerns two policies adopted by Arizona’s legislature following the 2020 election: a requirement for applicants using a state voter-registration form to provide proof of citizenship and a requirement for state election officials to review voter rolls and remove noncitizens.”
The case marks the latest instance of the high court taking up an election law case with the RNC as the lead party, after earlier this term the justices heard Watson v. RNC, which dealt with whether to uphold a Mississippi law allowing late-arriving mail ballots to be counted days after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. The high court ruled Monday to uphold the Mississippi law.
In the order list released by the Supreme Court on Monday, the high court also declined to take up President Donald Trump’s appeal of a lower court’s verdict against him in one of the E. Jean Carroll lawsuits.
SUPREME COURT CONTINUES TREND OF SAVING BIGGEST CASES FOR FINAL DAYS OF TERM
The Supreme Court’s next term will begin with oral arguments on Oct. 5 and continue through the end of June 2027, when the final opinions of that term are released.
The high court’s current term is expected to end this week, when opinions in the final eight outstanding cases argued this term are released. The Supreme Court will release opinions later Monday, as cases about the president’s firing power, a pair of cases about state laws banning biological men from women’s sports, and a pair of election-related cases, remain outstanding.