Arizona’s top elections official said Tuesday he will file a lawsuit that would bar nearly 100,000 residents from voting in state and local races this fall, alleging they failed to provide the citizenship documents required by state law.
The planned lawsuit from Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer is related to a specific section of Arizona election law required of residents. submit documents who proves their citizenship if they vote in state and local elections. Such documents not required For Arizona residents to vote or register to vote in federal elections. Like many other states, Arizona requires the “Oath of U.S. Citizenship” to run for federal elections.
Under Arizona law, residents who do not provide documentary proof of citizenship – or who “cannot be verified for US citizenship” – can only vote in federal elections through driver’s license registration records “or other records in the state’s voter registration database.”
a Long post to XRicher, who helps oversee elections in the battleground state’s largest state, said his office found a “gap” in state officials and systems verifying citizenship through residents’ driver’s license registration records, resulting in 97,000 people swearing citizenship. US citizens have not submitted proof of citizenship.
“All of these people have confirmed that they are US citizens under penalty of law. And in all likelihood, they are [are] Almost all US citizens,” Republican elected official Richer wrote. “However, they have not provided documentary proof of citizenship.”
As a result, if those 97,000 people can’t file such documents, they won’t be able to vote in state and local races this fall, Richer said.
The case, which will go to the state Supreme Court, comes as Republicans have wanted nationally suppress non-citizen voting. Former President Donald Trump and his allies have described it as illegal and a rare but widespread problem.
However, Richer is an outspoken defender of the swing state’s election process, which has been forced back against unsubstantiated voter fraud allegations that have surfaced since the 2020 and 2022 campaigns. He lost the PFLP initially to Justin Heap, critic of the Maricopa County elections in July, who dodged questions about whether the 2020 election was rigged.
Regardless of the outcome of the suit, the group of affected voters will be able to vote in key Arizona presidential and Senate races this year. But they can be barred from getting down the ballot in competitive elections, including state legislative races and a constitutional amendment seeking to ensure access to abortion.
Since 1996, Arizona has required residents to provide proof of citizenship to obtain a driver’s license. Beginning in 2004, “the vast majority of voter registration applicants confirmed their citizenship requirements for voter registration purposes by submitting this proof to the Department of Motor Vehicles,” Richer explained.
“To confirm this, the voter registration simply checks with the MVD that the voter received a license after 1996.”
But Richer’s office discovered a loophole in which a special group of residents who got their license before 1996 and later replaced it were automatically considered “documented proof” by the state’s voter registration system and the state Department of Motor Vehicles. In the case that information about citizenship in the document of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is not provided.
Richer said he was working with state officials, including the offices of Gov. Katie Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, both Democrats, to “make that progress.”
“We inherited this problem, we’re on it and we’re going to fix it,” Fontes said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Fontes’ office added: “Since 2004, these requirements have become much stricter. Officials recently discovered that some long-term Arizonans enrolled under less stringent rules were not required to meet the new standards because of coding oversight. To address this, the state has taken legal steps to ensure the full participation of mostly Republican voters in the 2024 election.
Fontes’ office said it will ask the state Supreme Court to allow all affected voters to receive full ballots, and voters will be allowed to submit the required documents until Election Day.
In a statement, Hobbs said, “his team identified and corrected an administrative error that occurred in 2004 that affected long-time residents who obtained driver’s licenses before 1996.”
Hobbs said his office “will conduct an independent audit to ensure that MVD systems are functioning properly to support voter registration.”