NEW YORK TIMES
By Adam Liptak
October 15, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/us/supreme-court-to-hear-case-on-arizona-voter-registration.html?ref=todayspaper
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether Arizona may require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote in federal elections. The federal appeals court in San Francisco blocked the state law in April, saying it conflicted with a federal one.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case early next year, and the law will remain suspended in the meantime.
The state law requires prospective voters to prove that they are citizens by providing copies of or information concerning various documents, including birth certificates, passports, naturalization papers or Arizona driver’s licenses, which are available only to people who are in the state lawfully.
The federal law, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, allows voters to register using a federal form that asks, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” Prospective voters must check a box for yes or no, and they must sign the form, swearing that they are citizens under penalty of perjury.
The question for the justices is whether the state was entitled to supplement those federal requirements with its own.
A divided 10-judge panel of the appeals court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, ruled that the two sets of requirements “do not operate harmoniously” and “are seriously out of tune with each other in several ways.”
The federal law requires state officials to “accept and use” the federal form, Judge Sandra S. Ikuta wrote for an eight-judge majority, while the additional requirements sometimes make that impossible.
The requirements were also at odds with the federal law’s attempt to streamline the registration process, she wrote.
In a concurrence, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said he found the case “difficult and perplexing,” largely because the Supreme Court has not set out principles for how to reconcile federal and state responsibilities for conducting federal elections.
In dissent, Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson wrote that the federal law specifically contemplated the use of a different form developed by the state, one that could itself test eligibility requirements, including citizenship.
The appeals court upheld a second part of the Arizona law that required registered voters to show identification in order to vote. That aspect of the decision is not before the Supreme Court.
In June, over the dissent of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the justices declined to stay the appeals court’s decision while state officials prepared their appeal. The effect of that order was to allow next month’s elections to proceed without the state law’s proof-of-citizenship requirement.
The law was a result of a 2004 voter initiative, and it has given rise to tangled proceedings ever since. Under the Voting Rights Act, Arizona was required to obtain federal approval before it changed its voting procedures. The Justice Department granted approval in 2005.
The next year, the Supreme Court unanimously voided an order from the Ninth Circuit that would have blocked the state law’s requirements in that year’s elections.
The recent decision from the 10-judge panel effectively affirmed a 2010 ruling from a three-judge panel that included Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2006 but occasionally acts as a visiting appeals court judge. She joined the majority in ruling that the state law was inconsistent with the federal one and so could not survive.
In urging the Supreme Court to hear the case, Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, No. 12-71, state officials said the federal form amounted to an inadequate “honor system.”
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