By Jack Queen
(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court reinstated on Friday a pair of Arizona election-security laws aimed at preventing people from being registered to vote in multiple jurisdictions.
The ruling clears the way for enforcement of provisions that allow counties to cancel registrations of voters who have moved out of state and criminalizes allowing out-of-state residents to vote in Arizona, one of a handful of states that could decide the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.
The lawsuit was filed by the advocacy groups Voto Latino, Priorities USA and the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans, who alleged the provisions unfairly targeted voter-registration efforts and criminalized common voter behavior.
Representatives for the groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
A judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the provisions in September 2022.
A divided three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision on Thursday.
The majority found that the groups lacked standing to sue and rejected their claim that one of the challenged provisions was unconstitutional.
The ruling in the long-running case comes amid a flurry of litigation over election rules across the country, with looming decisions that could shape the outcomes in crucial states.
Republicans have filed scores of lawsuits seeking to enforce strict election security measures, while Democrats have sued to block them.
Trump, who faces Democrat Kamala Harris in the November election, has falsely claimed that his loss in the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden was tainted by widespread fraud.
(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Mark Porter, Rod Nickel and Deepa Babington)