Arizona admitted a massive error in its voter rolls, but the state’s top election official still hasn’t shared with localities the list of 218,000 registered voters who lack proof of U.S. citizenship.
The number of voters who can’t prove citizenship amounts to 5% of Arizona’s registered voters, but will affect who may vote in state and local elections that include referendums on abortion and illegal immigration.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said Monday that the number of misclassified voters—initially thought to be 98,000—is more than twice as many: 218,000.
A spokesperson for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, which oversees elections in the state’s most populous county, said local governments are still waiting for the names of those voters and how many registered in their county.
“Those numbers would come from the secretary of state’s office,” Taylor Kinnerup told The Daily Signal in an email. “Maricopa County, along with all other counties, are awaiting further direction and clarification from the SOS [secretary of state] on this topic.”
Arizona is a hotly contested battleground state in this year’s presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, which culminates Nov. 5.
In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump, the Republican incumbent, by about 10,400 votes or 0.3% in Arizona. Trump carried the state in 2016 against Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 3%.
As secretary of state, Fontes should provide more information to local election officials and the public, said Merissa Hamilton, founder and chairwoman of the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona, a watchdog group.
“Since the secretary won’t give the list of impacted voters or the databases to the [election] recorders, we cannot know how many more........