Citizens in Charge

Arizona’s residency requirement for petition circulators was struck down by a U.S. District judge today. This is great news. The District judge shot down the state’s claim that the restriction was simply to prevent fraud, saying:

“There are other means of accomplishing the state’s presumptive goal of preventing election fraud without preventing non-resident petition circulators from working on behalf of new political parties,” Bolton wrote, adding that the state never presented evidence that out-of-state circulators have committed fraud in other types of elections.

Residency requirements do nothing to prevent fraud, and only serve to restrict citizen rights in the state. Thankfully, the U.S. District judge saw through that false argument and ruled in favor of the average citizen.

Update:

It is important to note that this case has not been decided - only a preliminary injunction has been issued against the state enforcing the law. The judge’s order in the case, combined with the many recent rulings against residency restrictions, gives good indication that the court will strike the law down.

While this injunction is certainly a victory for petition rights and the average citizen, it is not a victory for initiative and referendum supporters. That is because this case dealt specifically with the residency restriction for people circulating petitions to put third parties on the ballot. The residency requirement for people circulating a petition for initiative or referendum was not looked at in this case, and appears in a different title of the Arizona Revised Statutes than the third party circulating rules. Supporters of efforts to get an initiative or referendum on the Arizona ballot are still subject to a restrictive and certainly unconstitutional prohibition against getting help from out of state.

We hope that the Arizona Secretary of State will realize that the days of states restricting their residents from being helped on a petition drive by people who are from other states are over, and issue a statement that he will no longer enforce such burdensome and ridiculous laws.