Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and then-Arizona Speaker of the House Ben Toma received another win on Tuesday in their lawsuit against Secretary of State Adrian Fontes over removing nonresidents from the voter rolls. The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s opinion which found that voters who swear on jury forms that they have moved away, in order to be excused from jury duty, must have their voter registration canceled.
Petersen posted on X, “We beat Fontes in court again. BIG WIN for election integrity!” He added, “Cleaner rolls protect real voters. Your Arizona Legislature defends sanity once again.” Additionally, Petersen said the court threw out “his extreme rule that would’ve thrown out EVERY vote in a county over a late canvass.”
The legislators said Fontes made changes to the state’s Election Procedures Manual (EPM) that violated state law. A.R.S. 16-165.A.9(b) provides for the removal of voters who have indicated on jury forms that they are no longer residents.
Fontes’ changes instructed county recorders to merely put the voters on the inactive list. He defended the changes by stating that federal law preempted state law. He said the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires voters to tell election officials in writing that they had moved. But the appellate court said the voters putting in writing on jury forms that they had moved was sufficient. “The NVRA does not require the voter to provide the confirmation directly to the county recorder or any other election official,” the justices said.
Read the rest of the article