Freedom

By Emily Hallas

Arizona election officials determined that another 120,000 voters across the state were registered as voters despite having never provided proof of citizenship.

The announcement from Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes marks the second time this month officials have found problems with voter registration rolls.

“As with the initial group of Arizonans, certain individuals were mistakenly marked as having provided documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) pursuant to Arizona’s Proposition 200 requiring DPOC to vote in state and local elections,” Fontes’s office said in a press release Monday. 

Roughly 218,000 voters have now been affected by an error made by the state’s Motor Vehicles Division database that registered people to vote despite them not having provided legally required valid proof of citizenship. 

The initial group of roughly 100,000 people was announced on Sept. 17 to have erroneously been registered to vote even though they had not submitted required proof of citizenship documents. 

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer filed a so-called friendly lawsuit in the Arizona Supreme Court after the initial news broke. He argued that the residents should be barred from voting in state and local elections, though it would not prohibit them from participating in federal elections.

Fontes disagreed, saying that the voters should be able to fully participate in the election. The state’s highest court ruled in favor of Fontes on Sept. 20, saying that the voters were not at fault for the database error.

“We are unwilling on these facts to disenfranchise voters en masse from participating in state contests,” Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer stated.

The secretary of state said that though the MVD made a mistake in allowing voters to remain on registration rolls using outdated credentials, he believed they were “individuals who have lived in the state for decades and have attested under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens.” 

“The reality is these registrants have met the same legal standard as every other American who registers to vote: swearing under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens,” Fontes said. 

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But though Richer agreed with Arizona’s top election official that “all of these people have attested under penalty of law that they are US Citizens,” he indicated on Monday that he still wanted the latest group of voters in question to provide the required proof of citizenship. 

“They might all be citizens, but they don’t have documented proof of citizenship on file with the MVD as had been understood,” he said in a post to X.