Senate President Petersen Leads Coalition of States Defending Voter ID Requirements to Strengthen Election Integrity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Senate President Petersen Leads Coalition of States

Defending Voter ID Requirements to Strengthen Election Integrity

PHOENIX, ARIZONA— Senate President Warren Petersen is taking action to strengthen election integrity across the nation by supporting voter identification requirements currently under litigation in Idaho.

The Arizona Legislature today joined Montana in leading a coalition of 20 states in an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case of March for Our Lives Idaho v. Phil McGrane to defend states' broad authority entrusted in the U.S. Constitution to preemptively protect elections from fraud and other unlawful activity.

The case stems from a 2023 law enacted by the State of Idaho prohibiting high school and higher education student IDs as accepted forms of identification when registering to vote and cast a ballot. Two radical special interest groups sued in an attempt to block the law from being implemented, but the case was dismissed. Since then, an appeal has been filed in an effort to overturn the law.

In the brief, defendants argue there is no evidence that the Idaho Legislature is attempting to deprive young people of the right to vote by not including student IDs as acceptable forms of voter identification. Additionally, the law is not a violation of the 26th amendment because no evidence has been presented demonstrating race, age, or gender were intentionally impacted by Idaho's decision to disallow student ID as voter identification.

"Every state has an absolute right to implement voter ID laws through its legislature," said President Petersen. "Arizona has been at the forefront of this movement to ensure the integrity of our elections' process through the requirement that citizens must produce voter ID when registering and when appearing to vote. Prevention is better than prosecution. A state is not required to wait until fraud occurs in order to take action to ensure fraud is prevented. The Arizona Legislature stands with Idaho and supports its rights to determine what constitutes acceptable forms of identification to register and to vote."

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For more information, contact:

Kim Quintero

Director of Communications | Arizona State Senate Republican Caucus

kquintero@azleg.gov