Judge says he's ready to toss lawsuit filed by Arizona GOP chair

In a new court filing, Judge Dominic Lanza acknowledged that party chair Gina Swoboda and two Republican allies are claiming there are at least 500,000 people registered to vote in the state who have moved or are dead. Their attorney said that violates the National Voter Registration Act.

Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, in his own legal filing, denied that is true, saying the state's list maintenance programs "exceed NVRA's requirements.''

And the judge, in a 17-page draft order, said that even if what the challengers claim is true — and he does not address that issue — none have shown they are in any way harmed by what Fontes has or has not done.

“A citizen does not have standing to challenge a government regulation because the plaintiff believes that the government is acting illegally,’’ Lanza wrote. “Nor may citizens sue merely because their legal objection is accompanied by a strong moral, ideological, or policy objection to a government action.’’

The judge specifically rejected their claims that having all those extra people on the rolls somehow dilutes the votes of the challengers. He called that assertion “impermissibly speculative.’’

Strictly speaking, what Lanza issued Thursday is not the last word. The judge said he will give the challengers’ attorney a chance to argue in open court next month that he is wrong.

But the judge made it clear he has reached a conclusion and said he would entertain oral arguments solely “to address any perceived errors in the court’s tentative analysis.’’

Dallin Holt, one of the attorneys who filed the case, said the challengers respect the judge's "candor'' in issuing the draft ruling, but think he got the issue of their right to sue wrong. They will  attempt to change his mind.

The heart of the claim is that 14 of 15 Arizona counties have voter registration rates that another attorney who filed the case, Andrew Gould, called “implausibly high.’’

He claimed there are more registered voters — both active and inactive — than there are residents who are 18 or older. All the counties with the exception of Greenlee have registration rates between 80% and 99%.

By contrast, he said, data from the U.S. Census Bureau puts the average figure nationally at 69.1%. Citing the same data, Gould said the expected registration rate for Arizona should be 69.9%

“Based on even the most conservative data sources, Arizona has at least 500,000 registered voters on the voter rolls who should have otherwise been removed,’’ he said.

In fact, Gould argued, the figure could be as high as 1.27 million. That is out of more than 4.6 million active registered voters and another about 708,000 inactive voters.

The latter category includes people for whom there is evidence they have moved.

The National Voter Registration Act requires the state to send out a forwardable notice to the last known address to find out if the person is still eligible. In the meantime, he is put onto a list of “inactive’’ voters.

Still, anyone on that list can cast a ballot by coming in and providing proof of residence. But if there is no response and the person does not vote for two election cycles, the law says they have to be removed from the rolls entirely.

Swoboda sued along with two others involved in GOP politics: Scot Mussi, president of the Republican-aligned Free Enterprise Club, and Steven Gaynor, who made an unsuccessful run as a Republican for secretary of state in 2018 and was briefly in the 2022 gubernatorial race before withdrawing.

They asked the judge to order Fontes to “develop and implement additional reasonable and effective registration list-maintenance programs.’’

Gould said his clients have a right to sue to ensure the voter rolls are as clean as possible.

“Because the secretary does not maintain accurate voter rolls, ineligible voters have an opportunity to vote in Arizona elections, risking the dilution of plaintiffs’ legitimate votes,’’ the lawsuit states. But Gould provided no examples of people casting ballots who did not have the right.

It didn’t matter. Lanza said even if Fontes was not maintaining the voter registration lists as required by federal law, that doesn’t mean it would result in the voters of others being diluted.

“Such dilution could result only after: (1) an ineligible voter requests an early ballot at a polling place; (2) casts a ballot; (3) that ineligible ballot is tabulated; and (4) sufficient other ineligible voters engage in the same series of steps in a number sufficient to ‘dilute’ plaintiffs’ votes,’’ the judge said. That’s a “long chain of hypothetical contingencies’’ that do not rise to the level of providing a basis to sue, Lanza said.

The judge was no more impressed by the challengers’ alternate legal theory that Fontes’ alleged failure to comply with what federal law requires undermines their “confidence’’ in the election system.

“Plaintiffs effectively ask the court to find that their fear of vote dilution — which they allege, erodes their confidence in the electoral process and discourages their participation — is an injury that is independent from the actual vote dilution they separately identify as one of their injuries,’’ Lanza wrote.

For the same reason Lanza said the vote dilution claim can’t stand, he said this theory is no better, and that they were “repackaging their fear of vote dilution ... as an independent injury.’’

Their self-proclaimed fear alone of what might happen is legally insufficient to form the basis for this lawsuit, he said.

“Plaintiffs cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending,’’ Lanza wrote.

Finally, the judge rejected claims by challengers that less-than-accurate voter registration rolls mean they have to spend more money on things like voter education and monitoring elections for fraud and abuse. He called these “vague claims that a policy hampers its mission.’’