DECISION ERASES CONFUSION

Voting places two great responsibilities upon the states. One is to make voting itself as accessible to all eligible voters as possible. The other, to defend the integrity of the ballot. Not unlike our system of government itself, the tensions between those conflicting duties are inherent to the elections process.

Since 2004, Arizona’s voterapproved Proposition 200 — which required proof of citizenship in order to register to vote — has strained those responsibilities.

Detractors of the law argue it unnecessarily made voter registration difficult for the poor and elderly, particularly minorities. Because Arizona does not accept many other states’ driver licenses as proof of citizenship, it creates a hardship for people who move here.

Advocates contend it safeguards the system in a state with a substantial population of undocumented immigrants, though they have never been able to document widespread fraud.

Both those arguments are (and certainly have been) debate material.

What is beyond debate is that a U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer and subsequent action by federal officials unnecessarily complicated the registration process in Arizona.

The court ruled Arizona can’t require would-be voters to show evidence of citizenship when they register using a federal form, but can require it on state forms. The court left the door open for the state to ask the federal Election Assistance Commission to add the requirement to the national form used in Arizona.

The state asked; the commission said no.

This week, a U.S. District Court judge in Wichita, Kan., ruled the commission acted improperly in denying Arizona’s and Kansas’ requests. Judge Eric Melgren concluded that Congress had not “preempted state laws requiring proof of citizenship through the National Voter Registration Act.”

Federal registration rules ask prospective voters to attest that they are citizens. Arizona and Kansas require proof. The upshot of the court rulings forbidding the require- ment for federal registrations but allowing it for state and local elections has been confusion that serves neither voters nor elections.

Last fall, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett announced plans to create a two-track voting system. One track, for registrants who proved their citizenship, would register voters for state and local elections. The other, for people who used the federal form, would allow registrants to vote only in federal elections.

It is difficult to imagine a voter-registration system more likely to produce chaos and uncertainty.

This isn’t the end of the debate. The Election Assistance Commission is weighing an appeal to the 10th U.S. Cir- cuit Court of Appeals in Denver. The Justice Department is considering its options, as well. Secretary of State Bennett, meanwhile, said he will continue to prepare the dualtrack system in the event of yet another court decision against Prop. 200.

Dual-track voter registration is, unquestionably, the worst possible outcome.

The Arizona Republic has always opposed Prop. 200’s voter-ID requirements; we would have preferred a court decision tossing them out. But once the Supreme Court upheld them, it became clear the alternative encourages the worst of both worlds for voters.

Judge Melgren’s decision erases the confusion, doing the state and its voters a favor.