The Republican National Committee is urging the Supreme Court to intervene in an Arizona election dispute this week and block up to 40,000 of the state’s registered voters from casting ballots in the presidential race.

Republican state lawmakers say these voters did not provide proof of their citizenship when they were registered and now they should be barred from from voting in person or by mail.

Danielle Lang, a voting rights attorney for the Campaign Legal Center who worked on the case, said she found that argument to be surprising.

“They are trying to upend the law as it has been in Arizona at least since 2018,” she said. “The voters who registered using the federal form were not asked to provide proof of citizenship.”

She said the Republican lawmakers and their attorneys who brought the case “didn’t cite a single example of a noncitizen who was enrolled. Not one. Why would someone who is not a citizen try to register? It’s a felony and would get you deported, just to cast one ballot.

  • ChronosTriggerWarning@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    This is why i register as Republican. Never voted R once, but strangely and unlike several family members, I’ve never been purged from voter rolls, either.

    WEIRD.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      That’s more likely a function of your age and voting district than your registration. This kind of disenfranchisement is just a numbers game, so if you’re living in Houston’s Third Ward or you are trying to vote from the UT 40 Acres in Austin as a registered Republican you still run the risk of being purged or having your registration “lost”, because you’re in a community that’s overwhelmingly liberal-leaning.

      By contrast, if you’re out in The Woodlands or Beaumont or Midland, you’ll have local Republicans actively encouraging you to register. One of the savvier moves Abbott did after the nail-biter Senate race in 2018 was to get a bunch of organizers and registrars out to South and West Texas gun shows, signing up anyone with a passing interest in firearms. 2020 and 2022 have been much more favorable to Republicans, as a result.

    • snooggums@midwest.social
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      3 months ago

      You can get the same result by being unaffiliated but without the stain of being a registered republican.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        The benefit to being registered R is that you get to vote in the republican primaries, which means your vote has a much larger impact in determining who will be the republican front runner. I generally don’t care who wins the general, as long as it’s a democrat. But if a republican wins, I care quite a bit. So voting in the primaries allows me to have a much larger sway in who is actually running against the democrat candidate I’ll be voting for in the general.

        The reason republicans run crazies is because those crazies make it through the primaries. Being registered R allows me to vote for the least crazy crazy person.

        • snooggums@midwest.social
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          3 months ago

          So you vote for the more competent Republican who will still be voting for all of that party’s terrible policies, but will also be making them look less incompetent.

          That isn’t whe win you think it is.

          • Vox@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            He is quite literally saying that he always votes for democrats in the general election, but votes in the republican primary, which is not a real vote for office but a vote to the RNC that signals who to run in the general.

            We aren’t all fortunate enough to live in a Democrat or battleground district/state, so sometimes the best you can do is try to nudge the RNC to be less crazy while still voting blue in the generals.

            • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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              3 months ago

              Yeah this guy is trying to tell you you aren’t thinking outside the box, while not realizing he is in his own little box called “following the socially accepted rules from a time before politicians tried to overthrow the government”

              • Aniki 🌱🌿@discuss.tchncs.de
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                3 months ago

                It’s the same reason I support fighting AI disinformation with counter disinformation. Survival has only one rule: do whatever you need to do to survive.

          • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            You’re speaking with the privilege of someone who lives in a blue or battleground state. I live in a hard red state, which will always vote red no matter what. The best I can hope for is to vote for the least crazy leopards in the primaries, because that’s the only way to realistically affect change and prevent the Overton window from shifting even farther right.

    • Kalkaline @leminal.space
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      3 months ago

      It also means you can’t pick a more progressive candidate in the Democrat primary which pushes the country right.

      • ChronosTriggerWarning@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        That’s understood. But, i get to vote in the REPUBLICAN primary, and i assure you, my vote doesn’t go to the standard R candidate.

        • zeekaran@sopuli.xyz
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          3 months ago

          Almost never? The most common is you can only vote in the primary you are registered in, and you can only be registered for one at a time. The next option is be unaffiliated and be allowed to pick which one to vote in. I’m personally not aware of states where someone can vote in both at the same time.

        • Drusas@fedia.io
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          3 months ago

          Rules vary by state, but generally you can only vote in one or the other.