Arizona voter registration system error impacts an additional 120,000 people: Secretary of State

Voter database error impacting more Arizona voters

More Arizona voters who did not prove their citizenship, but were allowed to vote for nearly two decades, have been discovered. The state's Attorney General said 'the vast majority of these voters' are citizens. FOX 10's Ashlie Rodriguez reports.

PHOENIX - Officials with the Arizona Secretary of State's Office say they have found more voters who were affected by a voter registration system error.

In a statement, officials with the office said a new set of about 120,000 Arizonans may be affected by what they called a "data coding oversight within ADOT’s Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) and Arizona voter registration databases."

"This data set includes approximately 79,000 Republicans, 61,000 Democrats, and 76,000 Other Party (OTH), bringing the total of impacted individuals to approximately 218,000," read a portion of the statement.

News of the new discovery came almost two weeks after the Maricopa County Recorder's Office found that 97,000 voters who were able to register to vote without providing documented proof of citizenship. At the time the discovery was announced, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said a majority of the affected voters are most likely U.S. citizens: they just don't have documented proof.

Since 2004, Arizona requires a voter to provide documented proof of citizenship. So, if a driver with an older license registers to vote, the MVD thinks they have proof of citizenship in the system and allows them to vote a full ballot. The error has allowed them to slip through the cracks for years. Ultimately, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the affected voters can vote on the full ballot. The Secretary of State's Office said the decision still stands.

"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," Secretary of State Adrian Fontes wrote.

"The vast majority of these voters are citizens. There’s no real evidence that they’re not, and that’s why the supreme court ruled what it did, which is it's OK for all of these voters to be given both state and federal ballots," said AG Mayes.

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While the majority of the voters are Republicans, Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda said the oversight raises major concerns about the state voter rolls' integrity.

"I have been getting lectured for two years, four years, about how Republicans are collapsing confidence in the system with their constant harping that they think the election was stolen. What is this? This is not a collapse of confidence in the system?" Swoboda said.

While the Arizona GOP supports allowing these people to vote the full ballot, they are calling for a higher level of transparency in the election process. In response, AG Mayes pointed out that the error started and wasn't discovered for 20 years, during a time when the state had Republican governors and Republican secretaries of state.

"I think you have to ask: why was this not fixed by Republican governors in the past?" AG Mayes said. "They often believe in starving government, and if you don’t provide the Department of Motor Vehicles with the resources they need, things happen."