Another thread the needle ruling. But the court basically agreed with Arizona’s points. And it ‘happily’ found an escape route to avoid declaring NVRA unconstitutional by finding that Arizona can still appeal to get proof of citizenship as part of form vs. a supposed oath.
They laid a path to address - that every state should exercise at this point.
I think an interesting approach in actual elections would be to set up two lines at election places. One for those following the full AZ law and eligible to vote for all candidates running at local, state and Federal level and other line for ‘Federal only’ voters who can not prove citizenship. After all the Federal law only affects Federal elections.
Lets see how many line up in the ‘Federal only’ line.....
Congress does not control who votes, States control who votes. To wit: the varied state laws regarding felony disenfranchisement.
Arizona is perfectly within its rights to determine who may/not vote and by what mechanism that determination is made.
The Federal government is interfering with Arizona’s right.
Though it looks like there is a ‘path’ to resolution. Alito points out - its not really a path.
“In refusing to give any weight to Arizona’s interest inenforcing its voter qualifications, the Court suggests thatthe State could return to the Election Assistance Com- mission and renew its request for a change to the federal form. Ante, at 16–17. But that prospect does little toassuage constitutional concerns. The EAC currently has no members, and there is no reason to believe that it will be restored to life in the near future. If that situation persists, Arizona’s ability to obtain a judicial resolution of its constitutional claim is problematic. The most that the Court is prepared to say is that the State “might” succeedby seeking a writ of mandamus, and failing that, “might” be able to mount a constitutional challenge. Ante, at 17,
n. 10. The Court sends the State to traverse a veritable procedural obstacle course in the hope of obtaining a judicial decision on the constitutionality of the relevantprovisions of the NVRA. A sensible interpretation of the Act would obviate these difficulties.”
So the court happily used an path as the escape route to making a more definitive ruling. But the path is closed and not scheduled to reopen. Nice.