Additional 120K Arizona voters may be affected by MVD coding error

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — It appears an additional 120,000 voters in Arizona may have been affected by a database error that didn’t confirm their citizenship status, the state Secretary of State’s Office said on Monday.

The voters have lived in the state for decades, but a data coding oversight allowed them access to the full ballot even though they hadn’t provided documented proof of citizenship.

This is in addition to the nearly 98,000 people whose citizenship documents hadn’t been confirmed that was discovered earlier this month.

But, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said the Arizona Supreme Court’s Sept. 20 decision that 98,000 voters can vote in state and local races should apply to the 120,000 voters also affected by the data error.

The high court said these registered voters can cast a ballot since they registered long ago and had attested under the penalty of law that they are citizens. The justices also said the voters were not at fault for the database error and also mentioned the little time that’s left before the Nov. 5 general election.

The total number of those affected by the oversight is roughly 79,000 Republicans, 61,000 Democrats, and 76,000 Other Party, bringing the total number of impacted individuals to approximately 218,000, the Secretary of State’s Office said.

Arizona considers driver’s licenses issued after October 1996 to be valid proof of citizenship. However, a system coding error marked the voters who obtained licenses before 1996 as full-ballot voters, state officials said.

Election officials will contact the affected Arizonans with information regarding their status after the conclusion of the Nov. 5 if necessary, officials said.

Fontes said documentation for proof of citizenship is “an extreme law.”

“The reality is these registrants have met the same legal standard as every other American who registers to vote: swearing under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. We can’t risk denying actual citizens the right to vote due to an error out of their control. This issue is another example of why we need to fund elections, update systems and staff, and carry forward our proven tradition of safe, fair and secure elections,” Fontes said in a written statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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