Key Points:

• Arizona GOP challenges law allowing non-residents to vote

• Republicans argue law violates Arizona Constitution’s residency requirement

• Lawsuit claims overseas voters unfairly dilute Republican influence

The Arizona Republican Party is challenging a little-known state law that allows people who have never lived in Arizona to vote.

In new court filings provided June 30, the state party and the Republican National Committee contend state lawmakers acted illegally in 2005 when they agreed to allow the children of Arizonans who are living overseas, but still registered to vote, to cast a ballot, even if they have never set foot in the state.

The federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act permits Americans residing overseas to vote by mail in federal elections in the state where they previously lived. That includes both those in the military and those currently living overseas.

But attorney Kory Langhofer said federal law still leaves it to the states to “prescribe substantive prerequisites” for voting in both federal and state elections.

More to the point, he said the federal law is contingent on meeting state requirements, and he contends the 2005 law violates a provision in the Arizona Constitution that says voting is available only to those who have resided in the state.

This is more than an academic question.

Langhofer is citing data that appears to show that overseas voters — including those who have never resided in the state — skew heavily Democratic.

In Maricopa County, for example, he noted that just 18.2% of overseas voters are registered Republicans. Another 51.3% are Democrats, 26.5% are unaffiliated with a party, and 4% are affiliated with other recognized parties.

By contrast, of the more than 2.6 million people currently registered to vote in the state’s largest county, 35.5% are Republicans and 28.2% are Democrats.

A spokesman for Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said his office does not track how many people registered as overseas voters have never lived in Arizona. Aaron Thacker said the office has no comment on the litigation.

Whatever the numbers, the issue is significant enough to cause Republicans to ask a Maricopa County Superior Court judge to void the law.

“The burden of being forced to compete under the weight of a state-imposed disadvantage is a cognizable legal injury,” Langhofer wrote. And that, he said, is the case here, because it allows a number of people who are constitutionally ineligible to be registered — the majority of whom are Democrats — to cast votes.

Langhofer also represents Gina Swoboda, who is chair of the Republican Party of Arizona.

She is a resident and qualified elector who intends to vote in the 2026 elections. Langhofer said allowing those who have never resided in the state to vote “unlawfully dilutes the voting power of Ms. Swoboda and other qualified electors who satisfy the Arizona Constitution’s residence requirements.”

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley is putting a definite political spin on all this, even though the 2005 law was sponsored by a Republican lawmaker and unanimously approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

“Democrats want to cheat in our elections by allowing votes from people who have never established legal residency,” he said in a prepared statement. “The RNC is defending the rights of Arizona voters to stop this unconstitutional law in its tracks.”

The lawsuit states that the question of how many of these voters there are — and whether they can influence the outcome of an election — is legally irrelevant.

“Even in the absence of actual injury, plaintiffs, as political party organizations that engage in voter registration efforts and participate in Arizona elections and (in the case of Ms. Swoboda), voters, have a direct legal interest in the enforcement and implementation of constitutional provisions and statutes that govern voter registration in the state of Arizona,” Langhofer wrote. And he said the challenged law “directly affects those interests.”

The lawsuit asks not only that the statute be declared invalid, but also that Fontes’ office take action to ensure the instructions on the forms used to register overseas voters are clarified to indicate that those who have never resided in the state cannot vote in federal or state elections.

No date has been set for a hearing.

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