Nearly two weeks after Arizona’s Presidential Preference Election, questions remain about why some voters were disenfranchised.
The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office and the Pima County Board of Supervisors have launched separate inquiries into problems at the county-operated polls. The biggest complaint locally involves voters who said their registration was improperly changed from either Republican, Democrat or Green to “party not designated.” Only voters who belong to a party may participate in the Presidential Preference Election.
The size of the problem is unclear, but it appears to involve voters who did business with the state-run Motor Vehicle Division. Arizonans can register to vote when they obtain a driver’s license or change something such as their address with the MVD.
County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez told the Star last week that some citizens leave their political affiliation blank when they fill out a form with the Arizona Department of Transportation — the parent organization for the Motor Vehicle Division.
When that information is eventually forwarded to the county, Rodriguez’s office checks whether the person has a history of voting in a specific party primary. If so, the voter remains registered with that party, she said.
Her office has not kept an official tally of how many times that situation has occurred, Rodriguez said.
The Arizona Department of Transportation says voter registration is entirely in the hands of its customers.
The department’s website shows customers the data they have entered and asks them to verify it before the information is transmitted to the secretary of state and then to the County Recorder’s Office, said Timothy Tait, communications director for the Arizona Department of Transportation.
For customers who visit an ADOT office, one question on the paper form is specific to party affiliation. If a customer is newly registers to vote but leaves party affiliation blank, the ADOT customer service representative is directed to enter “blank” into the computer system, based on guidelines developed by the secretary of state.
It is up to the county Recorder’s Office to reach out to the new voter to determine if they want to choose a party or to become “party not designated,” commonly known as independent.
For those who have been previously registered and are just updating information but fail to check a box for a specific party, counties are directed to default to their previous party selection, Tait said.
The “blank” designation, Tait explained, signals to county elections officials not to make a change to the voter’s party preference.
“Based on input from Pima County, there is a claim that some customers are having ‘none’ entered on their file last month. Statewide, only 327 instances of ‘none’ were found and many of those may have been entered directly by the customer,” a written statement from Tait said.
“ADOT does not designate customers as ‘PND’ or ‘Party Not Designated’ unless that is what the customer inputs. ADOT does not register voters or change party preference — ADOT only conveys customer information, at their request, to the Secretary of State,” Tait wrote.
While the county and state agree on how forms left blank should be handled, what still hasn’t been explained is how voters in Pima and Maricopa counties who said they were longtime Democrats or Republicans suddenly lost their party affiliation.
The secretary of state’s investigation will look at that issue and various other election problems, including the long lines at polling places in Maricopa County, said Matt Roberts, the spokesman for Secretary of State Michele Reagan.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the canvass of the March 22 election at a special meeting last week.
At that meeting county officials said they believe the party registration problem can be traced back to the MVD, not the County Recorder’s Office.
Supervisor Richard Elías asked his staff to check on “problems with some of the registrations being changed from a specific party affiliation to an independent via a snafu with motor vehicle divisions.”
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said he would contact ADOT and the Arizona secretary of state about any “processing glitch” that would have changed party affiliations involuntarily.
“I think we need to act on that quickly,” Elías said, noting he heard from many frustrated voters.
Elías lauded the county for deciding in January to spend about $1.1 million on the election, which he said was necessary “due to the state Legislature’s decision to not fully fund this election.”
“I think looking at the snafu that took place up in Maricopa County showed us that this Board of Supervisors made a good decision,” Elías said.
Maricopa County operated 60 polling places, compared with 200 in 2012.
Pima County had 124 polling places, Elections Director Brad Nelson said.
Supervisor Ally Miller asked the County Attorney’s Office to investigate various election irregularities reported by the Recorder’s Office.
The Recorder’s Office said 92 voters cast ballots by mail and then tried to vote again at a polling place. Those incidents will be referred to the County Attorney’s Office.
Also, three voters tried to cast multiple ballots. Seventy-one would-be voters were not registered in Pima County and 35 others were under the age of 18.
Miller said those cases seem “similarly egregious” and requested they also be referred to the County Attorney’s Office.
Supervisor Ramon Valadez asked that the Election Integrity Commission be involved in the investigation and report back to the supervisors.
The Recorder’s Office said 8,466 provisional ballots were cast and 5,674 of those were subsequently determined to be valid. A press release from the office further detailed why so many people had to be given provisional ballots on election day.
It said 4,289 voters requested mail-in ballots but showed up at a polling place. Except for the 92 who had sent back the ballot and then tried to vote again on election day, the rest were people who did not return their early ballot and therefore were eligible on election day.
The recorder also reported that 1,856 people who were not registered with a party went to polling places. The Presidential Preference Election is for party members only.
Another 204 people tried to vote but had registered after the Feb. 22 deadline for the March election, while 107 people were given provisional ballots because they asked for one that didn’t match their party registration record.
Additionally, 72 voters’ registrations were in canceled status.
