Hobbs’ Office Goes Quiet After Admitting Review Underway Of Some Federal Only Ballots

katie hobbs
Katie Hobbs frequently mocks Arizona voters who question the integrity of the election process. [Photo via AZ Secretary of State social media]

It has been 24 hours since Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs admitted her office identified up to 6,000 voters whose citizenship may not have been properly confirmed at the time of registration, resulting in roughly 1,000 voters on Active Early Voting List (AEVL) receiving a Federal-only ballot last week.

But after announcing Tuesday afternoon that each of the state’s 15 county recorders are being asked to verify if some voters should have received a full ballot instead of a Federal-only ballot, there has been no substantial update from Hobbs’ office.

To be eligible to vote in Arizona elections, citizenship must be verified at the time of registration. The problems, Hobbs’ office explained, stemmed from a database error “in concert with” the Arizona Department of Transportation’s Motor Vehicle Division which led to a small number of voters to be registered as Federal-only voters “when they should have been registered as Full Ballot voters.”

Federal-only voters are those whose U.S. citizenship has not been confirmed. As a result, they are not allowed to cast votes in statewide or local races, nor any ballot initiatives and propositions.

A Hobbs’ spokesperson said any impacted voter “will be contacted” by the appropriate county recorder’s office, and if necessary a new AEVL ballot will be mailed from the recorder. Each county recorder’s voter database will be noted to ensure only one ballot per voter will be  processed,” the spokesperson added.

As of press time, Hobbs’ office did not respond to a request from Arizona Daily Independent for a breakdown by county of the number of voters under review.