
Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Arizona law which required either a picture ID or two forms of ID without a picture because in their opinion it is a discriminatory or onerous registration requirement. The law, which was passed by voter referendum in 2004 as proposition 200, was enacted to provide a minimal requirement of eligibility.
In a split decision, the court cited the supremacy clause and claimed the Arizona law conflicted with the National Voter Registration Act passed in 1993 . This is the Federal Law that Cloward and Piven lobbied Clinton to pass known as the “Motor Voter Act” . The three judge panel included Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, temporarily sitting by designation, and Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta, with chief judge Alex Kozinski dissenting. Arizona argued that the law was not in conflict as the requirements were not overly burdensome or discriminatory.
The Court referred to the NVRA requirement that each state “shall establish procedures to register” voters for federal elections according to the NVRA’s three methods. The first is the motor voter method and it restricts the state from requiring any additional documentation than necessary to prevent duplicate voter registrations and to enable the state to assess the eligibility of the applicant. The second method requires registration by mail using the federal form. Finally the third method is to make in person voter registration available in various public offices and buildings with an emphasis on targeting “the poor and persons with disabilities who do not have driver’s licenses and will not come into contact with” motor vehicle agencies.
It would appear that the court was most concerned with the second or mail in Federal form method. The Arizona law required;
The form used for the registration of electors shall contain . . . [a] statement that the applicant shall submit evidence of United States citizenship with the application and that the registrar shall reject the application if no evidence of citizenship is attached.
The court claims that the NVRA only requires that it must inform the applicant as to every eligibility requirement “including citizenship” and require the applicant to attest, under penalty of perjury, that the applicant meets each requirement. The form “may not include any requirement for notarization or other formal authentication.” In other words if you attest that you are an eligible citizen that is good enough and by informing you that lying about this is against the law those ineligible non-citizens will not register to vote.
I understand that decades ago some states and localities may have purposely created a confusing and burdensome maze to go through in order to register to vote in an effort to suppress the vote but I think the current decision and possibly the NVRA have gone way too far. In my opinion the NRVA has transformed from a protective law which enabled those who would otherwise be disenfranchised to vote into a vehicle to enable fraudulant voting. This decision is an obvious lurch to assist organizations like ACORN in their effort to register every person, regardless of qualifications, to vote. When Arizona passed Proposition 200 it was to protect the integrity of their elections not to disenfranchise any eligible voter.
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