As our country approaches a contentious presidential election, we face a new challenge caused by the collapse in border security under the Biden-Harris administration: ensuring that only U.S. citizens vote in November.
Verifying the identity of registrants is not an easy task. That is because the official federal voter-registration form does not require any documentary proof of citizenship. Instead, registrants merely need to check a box and sign a statement promising they are citizens.
Since its founding in 2021, America First Legal (AFL) has adamantly fought to guarantee election integrity. Now, it is taking additional legal action, specifically in Arizona, where the recorder of Maricopa County — by far the state’s most populous county — has all but abandoned his post.
Beginning in 2004, Arizona required registered voters to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote. However, in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Arizona election officials could not require additional proof of citizenship from individuals registering to vote with the federal form. Because of this — and other court decisions — Arizona is only allowed to enforce its requirement for proving citizenship for voting in state and local races. As a result, Arizona has a unique bifurcated voter registration system. Voters who have failed to provide proof of citizenship are only allowed to vote in federal races.
As of July 1, 42,301 of these federal-only voters were registered. Their numbers are increasing at an alarming rate, with over 7,000 new federal-only voters in April through June — an increase of nearly 20% in only three months.
In 2022, the Arizona Legislature passed a law requiring county recorders to perform monthly list maintenance to find and remove ineligible registrants lacking U.S. citizenship. Those laws require county recorders to “use all available resources” to verify the citizenship of recently registered voters and to review “federal databases to which the county recorder has access.”
Unfortunately, election officials have had a hard time independently verifying the citizenship of registrants because of flaws in each of the accessible databases.
Fortunately, two federal statutes are on the books that require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to answer requests from state and local officials about the immigration status of any individual “for any purpose authorized by law.”
Yet, Arizona’s county recorders had not been submitting requests to DHS using these two federal statutes because they apparently did not know that the statutes existed. This all changed on July 17 when AFL sent letters on behalf of our clients to all 15 of Arizona’s county recorders telling them about these statutes and asking them to begin submitting requests to DHS. Only two county recorders responded positively. That is unacceptable.
Every single one should have.
Most disappointing of all, outgoing Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (who recently lost a primary challenge and will leave office at the end of this year) claimed he had no authority to submit such requests to DHS to verify the citizenship of federal-only voters in Maricopa County. Richer’s failure to act is a dereliction of the most egregious kind since 63% of Arizona’s 42,301 federal-only voters are registered in Maricopa County.
Richer’s refusal is disappointing but not surprising. Maricopa County has a well-established history of mismanaging its elections. That is why, in February 2024, we filed a landmark lawsuit against Maricopa County officials for not following state election laws. That case was dismissed on a technicality. Our clients are currently evaluating their options to refile that case.
On August 7, we filed a new lawsuit against the Maricopa County Recorder, seeking a court order to force him to do his job. All we ask is he be required to follow Arizona’s laws that mandate he verify the citizenship of Arizona’s future voters.
A recent survey found that 60% of Arizonans “are concerned that cheating will affect the outcome of the 2024 election.” How can Arizonans have confidence in the integrity of their state’s elections when the government officials in charge of administering that election are not even following the law? In another survey covering Arizona and five other states, more than 1% of likely voters said they are not U.S. citizens.
The fact that over 42,000 registered voters in Arizona have failed to provide basic proof of their citizenship raises questions that must be answered. Arizona law requires it, and common sense does, too.
James Kenneth Rogers is senior counsel for America First Legal. He earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an LL.M. from the University of Cambridge.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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