On Monday, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes revealed that over 218,000 voters were improperly recorded as having provided proof of citizenship, a requirement for voting in state and local elections.
The Arizona Republican Party is calling the situation a voter “registration crisis.”
After stops and starts over the weekend, the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office released additional information about a new set of approximately 120,000 Arizonans who may have been affected by a data coding oversight within ADOT’s Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) and Arizona voter registration databases—individuals who have lived in the state for decades and have attested under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens.
This data set includes approximately 79,000 Republicans, 61,000 Democrats, and 76,000 Other Party (OTH), bringing the total of impacted individuals to approximately 218,000.
The Arizona GOP released the following statement in response to the news:
“Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has repeatedly demonstrated a complete inability to execute the core functions of his position. The public, impacted stakeholders, and the Arizona Supreme Court were misled as to the extent of the issue and its effect on Arizona’s voter registration records.
The AZGOP demands that Secretary Fontes IMMEDIATELY make public the SQL query used to determine in the voter records impacted by this error and that his office IMMEDIATELY deliver the list of impacted voters to all 15 county recorders.
Secretary Fontes’ desire for a top down system continues to shut out our county recorders who are the ONLY officials empowered by Arizona statute to process voter registration record changes.
This is a sad day for transparency.
The voters of Arizona have a total loss of confidence in Secretary Fontes. The AZGOP will continue to work toward transparency in all of our elections process.
Fontes’ office says “In spite of the evolving situation, the Supreme Court’s underlying September 20th decision about this issue stands. As with the initial group of Arizonans, certain individuals were mistakenly marked as having provided documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) pursuant to Arizona’s Proposition 200 requiring DPOC to vote in state and local elections.”
The Arizona voter registration database now has correctly flagged the impacted individuals as needing proof of citizenship, according to Fontes.
Election officials will contact the affected Arizonans with information regarding their status after the conclusion of this General Election if necessary. In the meantime, all individuals included in the database error remain eligible to vote a full ballot. This will give election officials the opportunity to verify that everyone affected truly is required to provide documentary proof of citizenship.
Similar to the initial announcement, the newly discovered issue pertains to misclassification of voters with a driver’s license issued before 1996. Arizona requires residents to provide DPOC to vote in state and local elections. In data shared with the Secretary of State’s office, MVD has been classifying these individuals with older credentials, from whom MVD never collected proof of authorized presence due to their original credential issue date, as having provided DPOC.
Staff and experts from the Secretary of State’s Office are continuing to work with MVD to investigate if additional voters are impacted, or if other similar errors stemming from improperly coded Proposition 200 rules exist.
Is the convergence of world elites at events like the Sedona Forum truly beneficial for addressing pressing global challenges, or does it reinforce a disconnect between decision-makers and the everyday realities faced by ordinary citizens? In what ways could the influence of elite circles overshadow grassroots movements that often hold innovative solutions?”,
“refusal
This mess is what happens when the government gets too Big!!
Being Fair, Honest, Truthful and having Integrity has all gone out the window!! Our Country is a Mess!! We need to close the doors and start over again!! Our Government is supporting way too many households including government workers and those with their hands out!! WE THE PEOPLE , the Middle Class Citizens…who work hard at our jobs…to do what?? Support our Country by paying Taxes and more Taxes…..We Deserve Better!! Most jobs do not go on for Life as the Government Officials pays and benefits continues until they die!! So who is paying for all that??? WE THE PEOPLE!! Something is Wrong and needs to be stopped!!
Is there a way for folks to check themselves and correct this if it is a problem? I moved here 40 years ago so who knows what I provided when I first registered. I’ve been a continuous voter since then and updated driver’s license info when needed.
Used to be corruption was a mile wide and an inch deep…you could usually see it if you just looked….now it’s a Mile Wide and DEEP as the Mississippi River…to muddy to see
My suspicion is, this mess will somehow be used to cover up the number of genuine non-citizens more recently registered to vote as citizens. I see the demand that Fontes document exactly who is and is not part of the pre-96 MVD screwup as essential to distinguishing them (us? I got my license pre-96) from actual illegals currently on the voter rolls. C’mon Fontes – if I’m wrong, prove it. Cough up the database query terms that found the 98,000 then 120,000 more pre-96 problem registrations.
Mandatory RECOUNT this election – with “Certification of every vote” doesn’t seem a way around this boondoggle – The FIX IS IN
It has been in for a long time. That is why we are where we are now.
Drop the BS Flag!
“Election officials will contact the affected Arizonans with information regarding their status after the conclusion of this General Election if necessary.”
Complete disregard for truth and integrity. Lock them up.
“The AZGOP demands that Secretary Fontes IMMEDIATELY make public the SQL query used to determine in the voter records impacted by this error”. Not a good idea. Let’s not make Arizona Voter database structure details available to the general public. Especially those members of the public who might just be inclined to see what they could hack with the info provided. Our voting procedures have suffered quite a bit from self-inflicted wounds in recent years. Let’s not inflict any more.
Hacking? They told us for years that the machines are not connected to the Internet. There is no hacking! It is the officials and insiders who manipulate the numbers. They do not want to make the info public because it would be obvious that the numbers do not add up to reality. Open everything up and let everyone see. Only openness and public control can guarantee clean elections.
This is just saying “tell us the words/terms you searched for”. That’s all an SQL query is. That would tell them who was in the pool of voters who are at issue.
A SQL query contains the names of databases and usually the names of tables and columns within those databases and perhaps, a lot of other database details that are not otherwise available. This is very useful information to a hacker who might have evil intentions. Without it a hacker’s task becomes much more difficult. Publishing a SQL query of the AZ Voter database might be what would be called an “own goal”.
The incompetence of AZ voting officials and operation has no limits. No one in their right mind should believe them when they say that past election results have been correct. And no one should have any confidence in the results of the recent election.
Officials should all be relieved and the laws should be completely rewritten. It is a travesty that current election laws prevent the citizenry to challange results and look into all aspects of the voting process to ascertain the correctness of the process and the results. That defies all claims of “democracy”.
Interesting. From 1995 to 2018 every Secretary of State was a Republican. Their incompetence never revealed this coding issue.
“Fontes’ office says “In spite of the evolving situation, the Supreme Court’s underlying September 20th decision about this issue stands. As with the initial group of Arizonans, certain individuals were mistakenly marked as having provided documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) pursuant to Arizona’s Proposition 200 requiring DPOC to vote in state and local elections.””
So now Fontes is using the ill informed Supreme Court’s decision as fact? If the Supreme Court did not know of the problem with the MVD then it’s decision should be voided. Or, is this just another excuse to get illegal foreigners on the voter list to vote in American elections?
Yes, it is. The D leaning Deep State operatives are everywhere in goverment. The Legislature, the Executive and the Judicial branch. They support each other and compliment each other’s actions. This informal system was established during the past decades and now appears to be in full control to the extent that it will be impossible to break it. The AZ Republic is dead! We the People are no longer in control!
I think it’s been dead for a while now. It seems like once a week there is another voter registration breakdown. There can’t possibly be this many “mistakes”.
Yes there can be this many mistakes. Remember, Fontes was initially County Recorder who was reprimanded by a judge when he (Fontes) was taken to court for trying to illegally change voting procedures.