AZ updates tally of voters mis-listed as providing proof of citizenship to 218,000

The Arizona secretary of state’s office has updated the number of voters who were incorrectly registered in the state as providing proof of U.S. citizenship to 218,000, up from nearly 98,000.

The secretary of state’s office on Monday announced that an additional 120,000 Arizona residents were found to have been placed on the state's voter rolls as providing proof that they are U.S. citizens, despite the fact that they had not done so.

Approximately 79,000 Republicans, 61,000 Democrats, and 76,000 Other Party members have been affected.

The announcement comes two weeks after Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) explained that there was an error in state systems that labeled roughly 98,000 voters as providing documented proof of U.S. citizenship when they had not done so.

The Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) provides the state’s voter registration system with driver’s license information, and the error occurred in that process. Affected voters had first obtained Arizona driver’s licenses before October 1996 and were issued duplicate replacements before registering to vote after 2004, Fontes said.

The error has occurred for about 20 years and over four administrations, he noted.

Arizona is a state with the unusual situation of bifurcated elections, in which residents who provide proof of U.S. citizenship can vote in all elections while the others may vote only in federal elections, resulting in ballots cast by voters who haven’t proven their U.S. citizenship.

Since late 2004, state law requires residents registering to vote in the state to provide proof of U.S. citizenship.  

The Arizona Supreme Court last month determined that the nearly 98,000 voters who had not proven their citizenship nonetheless may vote in the November elections with full ballots.

Following the discovery of the additional 120,000 voters, the secretary of state’s office said that the state Supreme Court's decision still applies and the voters will be able to vote with full ballots.

Fontes claimed that Arizona’s Proposition 200, a 2004 ballot measure that was passed and requires documented proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections, was the reason for the issues with the voter rolls.

“Let’s be clear, Prop 200 is an extreme law that attempts to solve a problem that is vanishingly rare,” Fontes said in a statement Monday. “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.

"We can't risk denying actual citizens the right to vote due to an error out of their control. This issue is another example of why we need to fund elections, update systems and staff, and carry forward our proven tradition of safe, fair and secure elections."

Because of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2013 that Arizona must accept U.S. voter registration forms because of federal requirements under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, the state allows residents registering to vote who don't provide proof of citizenship to receive ballots for federal races only. The ruling was over Proposition 200, which had initially also required documented proof of citizenship for federal elections before the Supreme Court's decision.