This week, the Arizona House of Representatives approved a bill, HB 2617, that requires County Recorders and the Secretary of State to clean up the voter rolls.
“This bill helps safeguard election integrity by requiring criteria by which counties would have to ensure and maintain their voter registration files are accurate,” said Rep. Joseph Chaplik, the bill’s sponsor. “It’s simply commonsense that we would validate if someone were a resident of this state and qualified to vote in order to receive a ballot. If someone is no longer a valid voter due to some change, such as moving out of state, this bill will help identify those changes. Voter rolls should be regularly checked against our own state resources to ensure they are current and accurate.”
Specifically, the bill prescribes specific criteria that County Recorders and the Secretary of State should use to maintain and correct proper voter registration lists, including removing dead voters.
Just this month, a Lake Havasu City woman, Marcia Johnson, was sentenced to one year of supervised probation and fined $1,000 after pleading guilty to casting two ballots in the November 2018 federal election. Johnson voted twice by casting her own mail-in ballot as well as the one that was sent to her deceased father, whose name had remained on the Mohave County voter rolls. In total, she had voted eight ballots sent to her deceased father over time, while Mohave County failed to remove the deceased voter from their rolls.
1. Directs the county recorder to cancel a voter registration when the county recorder is informed and confirms that the registered person is dead.
2. Instructs the county recorder to cancel a voter registration when the county recorder receives and confirms information that the registered person:
a) Is not a United States citizen, including when the county recorder receives a juror questionnaire on which a registered voter has stated that the person is not a United States citizen;
b) Has been issued a driver license or the equivalent of an Arizona nonoperating identification license from another state; or
c) Is otherwise not a qualified elector as prescribed in statute.
3. Requires the Arizona Department of Transportation to furnish a list of people who have been issued a driver license or the equivalent of an Arizona nonoperating identification license in another state to the Secretary of State monthly.
4. Stipulates that the Secretary of State, within 10 days of receiving the list, must provide to the appropriate county recorder a list of registered voters in that county who have been issued a driver license or the equivalent of an Arizona nonoperating identification license from another state.
5. Instructs the county recorder, before canceling a voter registration, to do the following:
a) Send the person notice that the registration will be canceled in 90 days unless the person provides satisfactory evidence that the person is qualified and if the person does not provide such evidence, the county recorder must cancel the registration and notify the county attorney and Attorney General for possible investigation; and
b) Send notice that the registration will be canceled in 90 days unless the person provides satisfactory evidence that the person is qualified and must include the reason for cancellation and send it to both the address in the person’s voter registration file and the address shown in the Arizona Department of Transportation’s records.
6. Directs the Secretary of State, each month, to compare the statewide voter registration database to the driver license database and notify the appropriate county recorder if a person who is registered to vote in that county is not a United States citizen or has changed the person’s residence address.
7. Specifies that, to the extent practicable, each month the county recorder must:
a) Compare the county’s voter registration database to the social security administration database; and
b) Compare people who are registered to vote in that county and who the county recorder has reason to believe are not United States citizens with the systematic alien verification for entitlements program maintained by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in order to verify the citizenship status of the people registered.
8. States that the county recorder must compare the electronic verification of vital events system maintained by a national association for public health statistics and information systems, if accessible, for people who are registered to vote without satisfactory evidence of citizenship, with the information on the person’s voter registration file.
9. Requires the county recorder to regularly review relevant city, town, county, state and federal databases that the county recorder has access to in order to ensure people who are registered to vote are qualified electors pursuant to statute.
10. Instructs the Secretary of State, at the end of each quarter, to report to the Legislature the number of deaths reported by the Arizona Department of Health Services and the number of voter registration cancellation notices issued by the Secretary of State to the county recorders as a result of those reports.
11. Directs the jury commissioner or jury manager to forward a copy of any jury questionnaire on which a person has indicated that the person is not a United States citizen or does not reside in the county to the Secretary of State and county recorder.
12. Specifies that the jury commissioner or jury manager must redact any information from the questionnaire that is not necessary for the county recorder to accurately identify the person in the voter registration database.
HB 2617 will now go to the Senate for consideration.