Mark Brnovich, Arizona's attorney general, has said he plans to fight the U.S. Department of Justice after it announced it is suing to stop a new election law aimed at keeping non-citizens from voting.
AFN reported in a July 7 story the DOJ is suing after House Bill 2492 became state law in March. The law requires documents such as a birth certificate or passport but the federal government says the law violates the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.
The legal challenge facing Arizona is that the Federal Election Assistance Commission must approve those requirements, which it has not, says J. Christian Adams, a former DOJ attorney who now leads the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
“This is a longstanding jurisprudence,” Adams advises. “It's pretty clear, in a number of cases the courts have decided, you can't have proof of citizenship requirements on a federal voter registration form."
In order for the state law to win in court, Adams says the State of Arizona would have to set up its own state-run voter registration system, which no state has ever had the “guts or the money” to do, he says.
As of now, that means states must comply with federal guidelines, the attorney warns.
