Republicans Ask SCOTUS to Lift Stay of Arizona Voting Law

Facts

• The Republican National Committee (RNC) asked the Supreme Court to lift the stay on Arizona's proof-of-citizenship law that would block an estimated 41K voters from casting a ballot in the presidential election — preferably by Thursday when ballots are scheduled to be printed.^[1][2]
• Meanwhile, Republican attorneys general from 24 states — under the leadership of Kris Kobach of Kansas — filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court to overturn lower court rulings against the law.^[3][4]
• These new filings in RNC v. Mi Familia Vota support an emergency application from the RNC earlier this month, which is still pending before Justice Elena Kagan. In 2020, Biden won Arizona by less than 10.5K votes.^[5][2]
• At issue is whether the law that the GOP-majority state legislature passed in 2022 requiring proof of citizenship in order for voters to participate in a presidential election or vote by mail violates the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and the state consent decree signed with the League of United Latin American Citizens in 2018.^[6][7]
• The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed on Aug. 1, by a 2-1 vote, the order that a district judge issued in May to block enforcement of the new requirement. Republicans claim these decisions violate the Purcell principle against last-minute changes to election rules.^[7][6][5][8]
• On the other side, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in a filing last Friday that the proof-of-citizenship voter law should remain on hold because judicial intervention at this stage would 'undermine the orderly administration of the election.'^[9]

Sources: ^[1]Azfamily, ^[2]Supreme Court, ^[3]Washington Examiner, ^[4]Just The News, ^[5]The Epoch Times, ^[6]Los Angeles Times, ^[7]The Hill, ^[8]SCOTUSblog and ^[9]CNN.

Narratives

• Republican narrative, as provided by FOX News. SCOTUS must accept the argument that there are millions of illegal immigrants in the US and each one of them represents an opportunity for fraud in the upcoming election. Arizona has the right — as does every state — to set its own election qualifications, and in this case the state wants to make sure every vote cast is done by a legal US citizen.
• Democratic narrative, as provided by Atlantic. This is nothing but an attempt by Republicans to throw the election into disarray. They want to discount the votes of thousands of people who had no reason to believe they hadn't registered properly. And even if Republicans don't win this case, they've sowed enough doubt in the integrity of the election so that they can challenge the results in bad faith if they don't agree with them.

Predictions