Arizona voter registration program was provided to all groups that applied

CLAIM: The Arizona secretary of state’s workplace gave liberal teams unique entry to on-line voter registration devices forward of the 2022 midterm election.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Each Arizona’s Democratic occasion and Republican occasion had entry to a web based voter registration program, as did civic teams. Actually, all organizations who sought to take part in this system, which helps teams register voters on-line and observe registrations, had been authorised this yr, in response to the secretary of state’s workplace.

THE FACTS: As Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs continues to face criticism from some conservatives after successful the governor’s race, social media customers claimed this week that her workplace improperly gave left-leaning teams unique entry to essential voter registration instruments.

“#corruptkatiehobbs sinks deeper into scandal with every revelation. Now we be taught she gave left wing activists unique entry to state voter lists in her efforts to subvert our elections,” one Twitter person wrote Tuesday. The tweet was shared over 2,000 occasions.

“The Secretary of State’s workplace seems to have been disseminating essential voter Info solely to leftist organizations,” mentioned one other Twitter publish.

However these posts omit the truth that a variety of civic and political teams had entry to this system, together with the Arizona Republican Celebration and the Arizona Libertarian Celebration. All organizations that utilized had been authorised, Sophia Solis, a spokesperson for the Arizona secretary of state, advised the AP in an electronic mail.

“No purposes had been rejected,” Solis wrote. She added that state-recognized political events in search of to take part in this system solely must contact the workplace and don’t must submit an utility.

The Arizona Libertarian Celebration participated in this system in 2022, occasion chair Emily Goldberg confirmed in an electronic mail to the AP. The whole checklist of collaborating organizations is out there on the program’s web site. The Arizona Republican Celebration, which additionally seems on the webpage, didn’t reply to the AP’s request for remark.

This system offers acknowledged political events and nonpartisan, nonprofit voter outreach teams with a singular net deal with or URLs to assist them register votes on-line and observe these voter registrations, in response to Solis.

Renaldo Fowler, a senior employees advocate on the Arizona Middle for Incapacity Legislation who oversaw its participation in this system, mentioned that his group was given a singular URL by the Arizona secretary of state that will take potential voters to an internet site the place they may register to vote. The secretary of state’s workplace additionally supplied Fowler’s group with data on how many individuals registered to vote utilizing that distinctive URL.

Fowler mentioned the steering from the secretary of state’s workplace clearly conveyed that this system was meant for nonpartisan voter registration actions.

“I feel it’s an awesome thought. It was only one extra device to get folks to register to vote,” he mentioned.

This system was applied in 2020 in the course of the pandemic with the objective of constructing voter registration extra environment friendly, in response to a January 2022 information launch.

“We had eight organizations—together with each the Republican and Democratic parties–successfully take part within the pilot program as a approach to conduct voter registration drives electronically, ″ Hobbs mentioned within the launch.

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Related Press author Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

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That is a part of AP’s effort to handle extensively shared misinformation, together with work with exterior corporations and organizations so as to add factual context to deceptive content material that’s circulating on-line. Be taught extra about fact-checking at AP.