The U.S. Supreme Court decided on June 29 to consider whether states are allowed to strengthen proof-of-citizenship requirements in elections, and also remove noncitizens from their voter rolls in the 90 days leading up to an election.
The NVRA, also known as the Motor Voter law, allows people to register to vote with relative ease at motor vehicle agencies and government offices. The NVRA requires states to make a reasonable effort to remove ineligible individuals’ names from voter rolls, but a federal appeals court ruled that names cannot be removed in the 90 days before an election.
In the case, Mi Familia Vota and other groups sued, alleging that an Arizona law violates the NVRA and a 2018 consent decree. A consent decree is a legally binding court-enforced settlement made with the consent of the litigants.
Federal and Arizona law specify that only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in federal elections. However, Arizona law now requires that people registering to vote produce documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization papers. It also allows the names of noncitizens to be removed from voter rolls.
When then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed the law in 2022, he said its requirements provided a balance between election security and voting accessibility.
“Election integrity means counting every lawful vote and prohibiting any attempt to illegally cast a vote,” he said at the time.
Critics have said the state law piles on extra mandates for voting that unfairly target Latino, Native American, and student voters.
Republicans say the law’s provisions are needed to safeguard election security, while Democrats have said they constitute voter suppression aimed at lowering voter turnout among groups that traditionally lean Democratic.
The consent decree, reached as part of a court-enforced settlement from a previous lawsuit, required the state to register applicants who lack proof of citizenship as “federal-only” voters who could participate in federal elections but not state or local elections.
A federal district court ruled mostly for those challenging the Arizona law, issuing an injunction that blocked much of the law, the brief states.
The Supreme Court in August 2024 issued a partial stay of the district court order that allowed Arizona to continue to enforce its proof of citizenship requirement when new voters register using state forms.
In February 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction, finding that the consent decree blocks the proof of citizenship requirement and that the NVRA preempts, or supersedes, the requirement—among other things. The appeals court also blocked the removal of names from the voter rolls in the 90-day run-up to an election, a practice it said the NVRA already forbids, according to the brief.
The Supreme Court’s partial stay prevails over the Ninth Circuit’s block of the proof of citizenship requirement. The high court’s stay will remain in effect until it issues a final decision in the case.
For years, Arizona has been taking “common-sense steps to enforce its citizenship qualification and secure its elections.” This case, like others that precede it, “concerns Arizona’s efforts to enforce that qualification.”
The Ninth Circuit is preventing the state from enforcing its citizenship qualification after holding that the NVRA preempts it and that it is blocked by the consent decree, the RNC said.
Quoting judges who dissented from the circuit court’s ruling, the petition calls the ruling “profoundly wrong.”
The case is expected to be heard in the court’s new term, which begins in October, with a decision likely by June 2027.
