Appeals court says Arizona should release list of voters with unverified citizenship
PHOENIX — The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling on Monday decision of a lower court that required the Secretary of State’s office to release a list of tens of thousands of voters who were incorrectly classified as having access to Arizona’s entire ballot due to a coding error.
The court rejected an appeal by Foreign Affairs Minister Adrian Fontes, which sought to overturn or at least suspend the lower court’s order. A group had filed a lawsuit in an attempt to determine whether those on the list are actually eligible to cast full ballots.
Arizona is unique among states in requiring voters to prove their citizenship to participate in local and state races. Those who have not done so, but have sworn to do so under penalty of law, may do so only participate in federal elections.
The misclassification of voters from federal-only voters to full-vote voters was attributed to a glitch in state databases related to driver’s licenses and the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division.
Several tight races in the battleground state are expected to be decided by razor-thin margins. While the group of about 218,000 potentially affected voters will have no influence on the outcome of federal elections, they could influence the tight state and local races.
Fontes’ office had initially denied public records requests for the voter rolls filed by America First Legal, a group led by Stephen Miller, a former adviser to former President Donald Trump. Fontes’ office raised concerns about the accuracy of the list and the safety of voters.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled last week that the court had not received credible evidence showing that the information would be misused or would incite violence or intimidation against voters whose citizenship has not been verified.
Blaney set a deadline Monday for Fontes’ office to release a list of 98,000 voters and information Fontes relied on when he announced in early October that even more voters had been affected — for a total of 218,000.