On Friday a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a conservative group and an Arizona resident that sought to force election officials to ensure noncitizens aren’t registering to vote in the state.
Writing on behalf of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, Judge Krissa Lanham, a Biden appointee, ruled that Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona (SCFA) and state resident Yvonne Cahill lacked standing to bring their legal challenge filed against Arizona’s 15 recorders last month. As The Federalist previously reported, that lawsuit alleged that the recorders “have failed to take the actions required by law to ensure that foreign citizens are removed from their voter rolls.”
“Plaintiffs are not entitled to a preliminary injunction because they have not made a sufficiently clear showing they have standing,” Lanham wrote. “Plaintiffs’ request raises no more than a ‘generalized grievance’ shared by every Arizona voter that elected officials must follow the law.”
SCFA and Cahill had asked the court to affirm existing voter list maintenance laws and issue an injunction requiring the state’s recorders to comply with them. They specifically argued that “federal law requires County Recorders to ‘perform list maintenance’ and to engage in ‘reasonable efforts’ to ensure that foreign citizens are not registered to vote.”
“Because it is illegal for foreign citizens to register to vote in federal elections, any foreign citizen who is registered to vote is ineligible,” the lawsuit reads.
Lanham noted that she would still deny plaintiffs’ injunction request “[e]ven if [they] had standing,”
