Every new client who opens an account at my firm hands over a driver’s license, a passport, or a certified trust document before a single dollar moves. Federal regulators call it Know Your Customer or KYC for short. I call it common sense: verify who someone is before you give them access to something valuable. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that will decide whether Arizona can apply that same principle to the ballot box, with a ruling likely by next June, and the case deserves more attention than it’s getting.

The case is Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, and the question is narrower than it sounds. Nobody involved is arguing that noncitizens should vote. Federal law already bars that. The real fight is whether Arizona can ask someone registering with the state’s own form to back up a citizenship claim with a document, rather than simply take their word for it under penalty of perjury. (The court granted certiorari at the end of June. Merits briefing runs through mid-October, with arguments expected later this term and a decision by the end of the court’s term next summer.)