Challenge to Discriminatory Voter Registration Restrictions Targeting Latino and Native Voters in Arizona (LUCHA v. Fontes)

Status
Active
Updated

At a Glance

Campaign Legal Center and co-counsel filed a lawsuit on behalf of several national and Arizona-based organizations alleging that Arizona’s new anti-voter law — H.B. 2492 — imposes severe, arbitrary and discriminatory burdens on Arizona voters that undermine their freedom to vote and violate federal law.

Back to top

The Latest

Free and fair elections rely on every voter having the ability to access the ballot box.   

A federal judge in Arizona just reaffirmed that principle, striking down provisions of two Arizona laws, H.B. 2492 and H.B. 2243, passed in 2022 that severely restricted the ability of Arizonans — particularly Latino and Native Arizonans — from exercising...

Back to top

About this Case

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and co-counsel filed a lawsuit on behalf of Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Arizona Students’ Association (ASA), and Arizona Democracy Resource Center (ADRC) challenging Arizona’s H.B. 2492, which was signed into law on March 30, 2022.

The lawsuit alleges that H.B. 2492 denies eligible Arizona voters the right to vote based solely on which type of voter registration form they use to register to vote and whether they have or can obtain paperwork that proves their current residence and U.S. citizenship status. Voters are already required to attest to these facts – under penalty of perjury – to register to vote, and federal law prohibits states from imposing additional requirements to register to vote in federal elections.

In 2018, Campaign Legal Center filed a lawsuit against Arizona over its “dual registration system,” alleging that election officials in Arizona were determining whether to register voters for federal elections based solely on whether the voter submitted a state-issued registration form or a federal registration form. As a result of the lawsuit, election officials are required to register voters for federal elections regardless of which form they used and must compare registration applications against the state driver’s license database to determine whether the state already had proof of a voter’s U.S. citizenship before blocking a voter from registering for state elections.

H.B. 2492 returns Arizona to its arbitrary dual-registration system, where a voter’s right to vote in federal elections is contingent on which form the voter uses to register. The new law also prohibits voters who do not produce specific documents from using vote-by-mail or early voting and prevents them from voting in presidential elections at all.

Federal law prohibits states from creating unnecessary barriers that restrict eligible voters’ freedom to vote. Voters should be able to cast their ballots freely, safely and equally to make the promise of democracy real for all Arizonans.  

Back to top