Alabama Attorney General urges Supreme Court to restore states' authority over voter qualifications
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a 26-state amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reaffirm states’ constitutional power to set and enforce voter eligibility, including removing noncitizens from voter rolls.
Steve Marshall, Alabama’s attorney general, submitted a 26-state amicus brief to the Supreme Court asserting that the Constitution grants states the right to define voter qualifications for all elections. The brief contends that the National Voter Registration Act permits states to require citizenship proof on registration forms and to delete noncitizen entries whenever discovered. It is intended to aid the Republican National Committee’s lawsuit against Mi Familia Vota, with oral arguments scheduled for December.
The brief notes that a federal district court previously blocked Arizona’s 2022 law requiring citizenship evidence, a decision upheld by the Ninth Circuit. Marshall highlighted recent guilty pleas by a Canadian and a Mexican national for voting in the 2024 general election as evidence of the issue. The amicus brief was co-led with Kansas and joined by attorneys general from Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The filing urges the Court to restore state authority, arguing that federal barriers dilute citizen votes and affect both federal and state contests.
Why it matters
A Supreme Court ruling could reshape how states manage voter rolls and enforce citizenship requirements nationwide.
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