An appeals court upheld a requirement in a 2004 Arizona law that voters show identification before they can cast ballots. The court says there wasn’t evidence that the mandate disparately affected Latinos as the challengers of rules had alleged. A 12-member panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals says in a ruling Tuesday that there was evidence Arizona has racially polarized voting and a history of discrimination against Latinos.
But the court concluded that no proof was offered to show that the ID requirement gave Latinos fewer opportunities to vote. The court, however, found that the federal National Voter Registration Act trumps another section of the Arizona law that requires people to prove their citizenship in order to vote.