Nearly 100k Arizonans could be ineligible to vote in upcoming state and local elections due to registration quirk

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Almost 100,000 residents in Arizona may be ineligible to vote in upcoming elections, due to a flaw in the state’s voter registration system which was discovered just weeks before early ballots begin.

A state law that went into effect in 2004 requires Arizona voters to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote in state and local elections.

Arizona’s voter registration system pulls information from the state’s driver’s license database as a method of proving citizenship, though officials in Maricopa County recently found the system had incorrectly shown people had provided proof of citizenship when they applied for a driver’s license.

The issue affects some 98,000 people, who got a driver’s license before October 1, 1996 – the day Arizona started requiring proof of legal presence in the US to get one.

However, though voters must provide proof of citizenship to register to vote in state and local elections, they can still register to vote for federal offices such as the presidency and the US Senate using a federal-only form.

According to NPR, the glitch was discovered by the office of Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, which oversees voting and voter registration, while verifying the citizenship of a person with a pre-1996 license.

The office found that the person was a lawful permanent resident but not a citizen eligible to vote.

This led election officials in Arizona to discover tens of thousands of voters in every county in the state that had not provided the documentation required to vote a full ballot under Arizona law.

Richer has now filed an emergency petition filed with the Arizona Supreme Court, which argues that the 98,000 voters should be allowed to vote in federal elections unless they provide proof of citizenship by Election Day.

“It is my position that these registrants have not satisfied Arizona’s documented proof of citizenship law, and therefore can only vote a ‘federal-only’ ballot,” Richer, who was defeated in this year’s Republican primary by an ally of Donald Trump, told NPR.

The "federal only" status would allow the voters to cast ballots in races like the presidential contest between Trump and Kamala Harris but prevent them from weighing in on multiple state-level laws, including a measure to put abortion rights into the state Constitution.

However, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said his office plans to file a reply with the court, asking it to allow the 98,000 impacted voters to vote a full ballot this year.

It is hoped there will be a ruling by the end of the week as the state begins sending ballots to overseas citizens and military personnel, or at least before the state begins sending out early mail-in ballots on October 9.