The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday, Dec. 8, in a case that will decide whether Arizona can make people prove their citizenship to register to vote with the state's own form, and whether it can strike noncitizens from the rolls in the last 90 days before a federal election.
The case, Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, has drawn a fresh wave of filings in the past two weeks. The groups that sued Arizona filed their main briefs Oct. 13, and on Oct. 20 at least a dozen friend-of-the-court briefs were filed, according to the court's docket.
They came from current and former election officials, former Justice Department voting rights lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters and former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, among others. On Oct. 16 the U.S. Justice Department, which backs the RNC, asked to split argument time.
What the laws do
The challenge targets two laws Arizona passed in 2022. Arizona already requires new registrants to show "satisfactory evidence of citizenship." The laws also direct officials to cancel a registration when information from periodic checks of the rolls confirms the person is not a citizen.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2025 that the federal National Voter Registration Act overrides those provisions, according to the question the Supreme Court agreed to decide. The appeals court also held that a 2018 consent decree entered by a former Arizona secretary of state with private litigants blocks the state from demanding proof of citizenship.
The two sides
The RNC argues that federal law lets states collect information that helps them judge a person's eligibility, and that Arizona's state form can ask for more than the federal form does. It says the old consent decree never found a violation of federal law.
And it argues that the 90-day limit on systematic list cleanups does not apply to noncitizens at all, because they were never eligible voters in the first place.
Mi Familia Vota and the other groups that sued say the laws violate the voter registration act and the Civil Rights Act, the position the lower courts adopted in blocking parts of the laws.
Richer's brief takes a narrower line. Richer, who as Maricopa County recorder oversaw voter registration from 2021 to 2025, takes no position on the consent decree or the 90-day question.
