John, In October 2020, we won a major victory for Arizona voters, when a federal judge issued a ruling in response to a lawsuit we filed to extend the voter registration deadline in Arizona in the midst of the pandemic, allowing over 35,000 new voters to be registered in Arizona and to be eligible to vote in the November 2020 election. Now we’re joining the Campaign Legal Center as part of the legal team in a lawsuit challenging two new voter suppression laws passed by the Arizona legislature this year, as we continue to fight back in the courts to defend the franchise for all Arizona voters. One new law, H.B. 2492, imposes discriminatory burdens on voters with new documentary proof of residence and citizenship requirements. The other, H.B. 2243, requires local election officials to remove voters from registration rolls using stale, inaccurate, and unreliable data about a voters’ residency and citizenship status. In March 2022, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed an initial lawsuit challenging H.B. 2492, on behalf of several Arizona public interest organizations, and Free Speech For People joined CLC in filing an amended complaint in federal court on July 18, 2022. The amended complaint alleges that the laws violate the National Voter Registration Act and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution. The updated complaint adds new plaintiffs to the lawsuit, including Arizona Coalition for Change and two groups representing Native voters in Arizona: The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona and the San Carlos Apache Tribe. In addition to this new voting rights litigation, Free Speech For People is also continuing to litigate its pending voting rights case in Arizona challenging voter suppression laws passed by the state legislature in 2021. Our democracy depends on secure and inclusive elections, but these Arizona laws do not make our elections any safer. Instead, they discriminate against Latino and Native voters in Arizona by making it more difficult for them to exercise their freedom to vote. We will keep fighting to protect their fundamental right to vote and to protect our democracy. Read more about this new case on our blog. In solidarity, Courtney Hostetler
Senior Counsel, Free Speech For People | 
