Court rules nearly 98,000 Arizonans whose citizenship hadn’t been confirmed can vote the full ballot

PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday that nearly 98,000 people whose identification documents have not yet been confirmed will be allowed to vote in state and local elections, a landmark decision that could impact voting and close legislative contests.

The court’s decision comes after officials a database error detected which for two decades wrongly designated voters as having access to the full ballot. Voters already had the right to cast ballots in federal races, including for president and Congress, regardless of how the court ruled.

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, and Stephen Richer, the Republican clerk of Maricopa County, disagreed over what status the voters should have. Richer asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in, saying Fontes ignored state law by advising county officials to let affected voters cast their entire ballots.

Fontes said not providing access to the full ballot to voters who believed they had met voting requirements would raise concerns about equal protection and due process.

The Republican-leaning high court agreed with Fontes, saying county officials lack the authority to change voters’ status because those voters registered long ago and declared themselves citizens under penalty of law. The justices also said voters were not responsible for the database error and cited the short time remaining until the Nov. 5 general election.

“We are not prepared to deny voters the right to participate in state elections en masse on the basis of these facts,” Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote in the ruling.

Of the nearly 98,000 affected voters, most live in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is ​​located, and are longtime residents of the state, ranging in age from 45 to 60. About 37% of them are registered Republicans, about 27% are registered Democrats and the rest are independents or affiliated with minor parties.

Arizona is unique among states in requiring voters to prove their citizenship in order to participate in local and state races. Voters can prove their citizenship by presenting a driver’s license or tribal ID number, or they can attach a copy of a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers.

Arizona considers driver’s licenses issued after October 1996 as valid proof of citizenship. However, a system coding error marked nearly 98,000 voters who obtained a driver’s license before 1996 — about 2.5 percent of all registered voters — as full voters, state officials said.

The error between the state’s voter registration database and the Department of Motor Vehicles has now been resolved.

That number of votes could be decisive in the fierce battle for seats in the state Legislature, where Republicans hold slim majorities in both chambers.

Voters also decide on the constitutional right to abortion and a state law that would make it a criminal offense non-citizens for entering Arizona through Mexico at a location other than a port of entry.

Although Richer and Fontes disagreed about the status of the voters, they both welcomed the court’s ruling.

“Thank God,” Richer said on the social platform X. He told The Associated Press on Thursday that maintaining voter status would become administratively easier.

Fontes called the ruling in a press release an “important victory for those whose fundamental right to vote was under scrutiny.” Election officials will contact voters who need to update their proof of citizenship after the election, he said.

John Groseclose, one of the voters whose nationality was in question, said he was relieved he would not have to spend any more time sorting out the confusion.

Earlier this week, he said he waited for an hour and a half at a Tempe motor vehicle office, only to find that the employee who helped him was unaware of the problem and did not know how to update his voter registration — despite presenting an official birth certificate and a new passport.

“I am glad that none of us will lose our right to vote because of a mistake the MVD made some 20 years ago,” Groseclose told AP.