The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that some 98,000 Arizonans whose citizenship documents are not on file can vote in state and local races as well as federal races this November.
The court said that Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and all other Arizona county recorders have no authority to change the voter registration status of those who are not citizens to federal-only ballots.
An error in a database had allowed noncitizen voters to vote the full ballot for over 20 years after a 2004 Arizona law required residents to provide documentary proof of citizenship in order to vote the full ballot. Those who don’t have citizenship documents on file can only vote in the federal races, according to the Arizona law.
Confusion arose due to how duplicate driver’s licenses are issued and how some drivers, with licenses issued before Oct. 1, 1996, may not have citizenship records.
“This was discovered not because somebody was voting illegally and not because somebody was attempting to vote illegally, as far as we can tell,” Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said earlier this week. “And this was basic voter roll maintenance, and it showed us that there is this issue.”
“It is my position that these registrants have not satisfied Arizona’s documented proof of citizenship law, and therefore can only vote a ‘FED ONLY’ ballot,” Richer wrote on X, disagreeing with Fontes.
Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ann Scott Timmer explained the court’s ruling: “Fontes and Richer acknowledge that ‘[i]t is possible that Affected Voters have, in fact, provided satisfactory evidence of DPOC [documented proof of citizenship].’”
“This Court has also accepted original special action jurisdiction over election matters in which there is a need for immediate relief based on rapidly approaching election deadlines and where the key facts are not in dispute,” Timmer wrote.
“We are unwilling on these facts to disenfranchise voters en masse from participating in state contests,” Timmer wrote. “Doing so is not authorized by state law and would violate principles of due process.”
Fontes wrote on X, “We won. No voters on “the list” will be made Fed-Only.”
The swing state of Arizona could play a critical role in the presidential race this November, and the additional 98,000 voters may influence the outcome.
In 2020, President Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win Arizona since Bill Clinton did in 1996, and only the second Democrat to win since Harry S. Truman was elected in 1948. Biden was first Democrat to win Maricopa County since Truman. Biden won the state with 10,457 more votes than Trump in 2020. The state has 11 electoral votes.
Also this week, an Arizona judge ruled that even though a petition does not have the required signatures to put a voter initiative on the ballot, it can still be on the ballot for November. That story is below:
