By Gary Grado | Arizona Capitol Times
There was no frenzy at Maricopa County Elections upon word of Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling forbidding Arizona from requiring proof of citizenship for voters using federal registration forms. Nor does the decision mean voters will encounter changes in the way they register.
Karen Osborne, elections director for Maricopa County, said the county has been operating for the last year under a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the high court simply upheld with its decision.
And the ruling applies to a small percentage of potential voters. Maricopa County receives about 250,000 voter registration forms a year and has processed roughly 12,000 federal registration forms since the 9th Circuit ruling took effect in July 2012. Most of them were for modifications such as change of address. There are only about 1,200 that Osborne can’t validate whether they belong to a real person. That’s usually because of missing information.
“We are blind to whether the citizenship is proven,” Osborne said.
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