Arizona releases list of voters affected by citizenship-proof glitch

PHOENIX — A group that wants checks of whether some voters are citizens got access Monday to the names of about 218,000 Arizonans who may not have provided such proof.

The move came after the state Court of Appeals in a brief order Monday rejected a bid by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to keep the list from being given to Strong Communities Foundation. Appellate Judge Michael Catlett, writing for the three-judge panel, said Fontes had provided no proof that Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney committed any legal or factual error in ordering the secretary to surrender the information.

Fontes made it clear he still thinks there could be harms from releasing the names, in that the voters on the list could be subjected to harassment and threats from "election deniers.'' But Fontes' spokesman Aaron Thacker said the court has spoken. "He does believe in the law at the end of the day,'' Thacker said.

Merissa Hamilton, who heads Strong Communities Foundation, said it's not their intent to pester voters. In fact, she pointed out, the court order precludes her organization from directly contacting anyone on that list before Wednesday, the day after the election.

Those names will most immediately be turned over to the 15 county recorders, Hamilton said.

She said that will allow them to do what they can to verify whether those on the list are in fact eligible to cast full ballots ahead of the next election after Tuesday's.

Nothing in the court order precludes anyone else who gets the information from using it in an effort to prove election outcomes were affected by illegal voters.

Blaney's order permits Hamilton to give a copy to the president of the Arizona Senate, the speaker of the Arizona House and the members of the Elections committees of both chambers. Some members of those panels still publicly question the results of the 2020 and 2022 elections.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled all 218,000 voters on the list can vote in this election.

That could provide fresh fodder for candidates who lose their elections to mount legal challenges. That is especially true as the number of voters on that list could far exceed the margins of victory in some close races.

Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in Arizona four years ago by 10,457 votes. In 2022 Republican Kari Lake — now running for Senate — lost the gubernatorial race to Katie Hobbs by 17,117 votes. And Democrat Kris Mayes won the race for attorney general over Abe Hamadeh by just 280 votes.

But Hamilton said there's another side to the release of the list to county recorders. She said it could help prevent some legal voters from being disenfranchised.

In at least two counties, some people were told they could not cast a ballot because they lacked proof of citizenship.

Taylor Kinnerup of the Maricopa Couty Recorder's Office said that happened when those on a version of the list tried to change their registration. She said the early ballots they cast then were put into "suspense.''

Kinnerup said all of that has now been cleared up, though, especially since the Supreme Court made it clear that everyone on that list is entitled to cast a full ballot, at least this year, while the voter registration database problems are worked out.

There were similar problems in Pinal County.

But Hamilton said she thinks there are, in fact, at least some names on the list of people who are not citizens. She now wants recorders to compare names with federal databases to cleanse the rolls before the next election.

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Still, she conceded that, when all is said and done, she's not anticipating a lot of folks will be knocked off the voter rolls.

"I expect that a super majority of the voters on that list are citizens,'' Hamilton told Capitol Media Services. "I expect it to be only a tiny amount that aren't.''

She added, however, that the glitch in the voter registration database that created the issue does not provide her with confidence. 

"I just don't think that we can have faith right now in how the MVD (Motor Vehicle Division) system is being managed,'' Hamilton said. She wants an independent audit, separate from one ordered by Gov. Hobbs.

The issue stems from a 2004 voter-approved law that requires proof of citizenship to register and vote.

That law says proof could be verified by the registrant providing the number on an Arizona driver's license issued after Oct. 1, 1996. That is the effective date of a separate law requiring proof of legal presence to get a license.

Only thing is, what MVD reported to county election officials wasn't always the date of the original license but instead the date someone got a duplicate license or made a change of address. And if that date was after Oct. 1, 1996, recorders presumed there was proof of citizenship on file, even though there wasn't. 

The glitch was discovered recently when Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer discovered one person who had been registered who was not, in fact, a citizen despite the MVD certification.

The list initially was estimated at 98,000 but grew to about 218,000 when other problems were discovered in the link between MVD's database and what was being provided to counties.

The state Supreme Court subsequently acknowledged there may not be the legally required "documented proof of citizenship" on file because of the glitch. But the justices said that given the timing so close to the Nov. 5 election — and that given everyone on the list appears to have been in Arizona since before October 1996 — they did not want to risk disenfranchising legitimate voters.

In the meantime, Stronger Communities went to court to get its own copy of the list.

Fontes acknowledged that is a public record. In fact, the entire voter registration file is public.

But he argued that releasing it could lead to threats and intimidation of voters — and even possible violence. He said that fits within the exception of the law that allows public records to be withheld in the "best interests of the state.''

Blaney, however, noted that Hamilton testified her organization wasn't going to use it to contact voters but instead turn it over only to county recorders and certain state legislators.

The Court of Appeals then found no problem with Blaney's ruling.