Voting rights advocate declares 'major victory' as 'voter suppression' suit rejected

In a major legal victory for voting rights advocates in the critical swing state of Arizona, a federal judge on Friday struck down a conservative group’s attempt to require election officials in the state to submit voter names to the federal government to prove their citizenship and immigration status.

U.S. District Judge Krissa Lanham’s ruling late Friday denied a request by Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona to order every county recorder in the border state to perform “voter list maintenance." The judge noted in her ruling that the task would require “tens of thousands of voter names” to be submitted to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – and that the group filed their lawsuit just 51 days before Election Day.

“In a major victory for Arizona voters, a federal judge just REJECTED a rightwing voter suppression scheme aimed at Arizona county recorders,” said Marc E. Elias, a Democratic Party elections lawyer and founder of Democracy Docket, in a post on X. “Proud that my firm represented [Voto Latino] and [One Arizona] in this important victory.”

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In the ruling, Lanham found that not only did the group lack standing, but their request “raises no more than a ‘generalized grievance’ shared by every Arizona voter that elected officials must follow the law.”

"And even if plaintiffs had shown an injury in fact, the mismatch between their shifting requests for emergency relief and stated goals would prevent a federal court from redressing their injury," the judge said in her ruling.

According to a New York Times polling average as of Oct. 9, Trump led Harris by 2 percentage points with 49% support in Arizona, U.S. News reported. Biden narrowly won the state in 2020, four years after Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton there in 2016 by 3.5 points, the publication reported.