The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Friday that about 98,000 people who don’t have verified citizenship documents can vote in state and local elections.
The court’s decision came after officials discovered an error in a database that had erroneously designated voters as having access to their entire ballot for two decades.
Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Republican Maricopa County Recorder Steven Richer disagreed about what status voters should have, and Richer asked the Supreme Court to decide, arguing that Fontes ignored state law by advising county officials to have affected voters cast all their ballots.
Fontes said denying voters who believe they have met the voting requirements access to the full ballot raises equal protection and due process concerns.
The Supreme Court agreed with Fontes. It said county officials had no authority to change voters’ status because voters had registered long ago and demonstrated their citizenship under the law, which would have been punishable by law. The justices also said the database error was not the voters’ fault, and noted there was little time left until the Nov. 5 general election.
“Given these facts, we are not willing to disenfranchise voters en masse,” Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote in her ruling.
Arizona is different from other states in that it requires proof of citizenship for voters to participate in local and state elections. Voters can prove their citizenship by showing a driver’s license or tribal ID number. They can also attach a copy of their birth certificate, passport or naturalization certificate.
Arizona recognizes driver’s licenses issued after October 1996 as valid proof of citizenship, but a system coding error meant that about 98,000 voters who got their licenses before 1996 – about 2.5% of all eligible voters – were counted as full voters, state officials said.
The error between the state’s voter registration database and the Department of Motor Vehicles would not have affected the presidential election, but it could be the deciding factor in a tightly contested state legislature, where Republicans hold slim majorities in both houses.
It could also affect voting measures. Constitutional Right to Abortion and Treating foreigners as criminals If you enter Arizona through Mexico at a location other than a port of entry.
In a post on social platform “X,” Richer thanked the court for its swift review of the case and for Fontes’ cooperation in resolving the errors.
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