Opinion ID: 3048352
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Poll Tax

Text: Appellants contend that Proposition 200’s registration identification requirement amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax in violation of the Twenty-fourth Amendment because some Arizona citizens possess none of the documents sufficient for successful registration. As a result, appellants say, these citizens will be required to spend money to obtain documents necessary to register to vote and, therefore, are being taxed to vote. [1] The Twenty-fourth Amendment proscribes any denial or abridgement of the right to vote for “failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” U.S. Const. amend. XXIV. The Amendment was passed in order to combat the “disenfranchisement of the poor[,]” which was the intention of the early poll taxes. Harman v. Forssenius, 380 U.S. 528, 539 (1965). Appellants assert that Proposition 200 effects exactly this result in Arizona and thus is unconstitutional. Arizona’s new law, however, is not like the system found unconstitutional in Harman. That case examined a Virginia provision that required voters to pay a poll tax, but allowed those who were unwilling or unable to pay the tax to file a certificate of residency. Id. at 530-31. The Supreme Court struck down the Virginia system specifically because it was premised on the requirement that some voters pay a poll tax. Id. The Court emphasized that the issue was not whether Virginia could require all voters to file a certificate of residency 4450 GONZALEZ v. YES ON PROPOSITION 200 each year, but that voters were required to file such certificate only if they refused to pay a poll tax. Id. at 542. Thus, their right to vote was “abridged . . . by reason of failure to pay the poll tax.” Id. [2] Here, voters do not have to choose between paying a poll tax and providing proof of citizenship when they register to vote. They have only to provide the proof of citizenship. Nor does Arizona’s new law “make[ ] the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard.” Harper v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 666 (1966) (holding that a state may not condition voting in state elections on payment of a tax). Plaintiffs have demonstrated little likelihood of success of proving that Arizona’s registration identification requirement is a poll tax.