On Friday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and the Arizona Republican Party in allowing nearly 100,000 voters caught up in a voter registration system error to vote the full Arizona ballot this year.
The error involved a required proof of citizenship to vote, and a failure of the Motor Vehicle Division’s voter registration system.
Only three days before the Supreme Court ruled, the Republican Party of Arizona joined the Democrat Secretary of State in trying to defeat Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s latest court case, in which he was asking the court to sanction his sending the voters in questions federal only ballots, stripping them of their participation in state races.
On Wednesday, the Republican Party of Arizona filed an amicus brief in the Arizona Supreme Court supporting the preservation of voter rights in the case involving nearly 100,000 voters whose registration statuses were jeopardized by a state government clerical error.
The AZGOP urged the court to protect voters from sudden disenfranchisement and argued that the requested relief from Petitioner Maricopa County Recorder Richer violated both state and federal law.
The AZGOP’s amicus brief noted the importance of adhering to the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which prohibits systematic voter removals within 90 days of a federal election, and argues that the removal of voters based on this clerical error violated both their due process and the U.S. Constitution. The AZGOP maintains that any action taken to correct these registration issues should not result in the disenfranchisement of voters who have long participated in Arizona’s elections without issue.
The AZGOP argued that the clerical error must be addressed, but that doing so in the final weeks before a major election would violate the NVRA and constitutional protections of voting rights.
Richer was overwhelmingly rejected by voters in the 2024 Republican Primary and many political observers view his latest legal move as a slap at the election process “on his way out the door.”
