Arizona’s online voter registration system has improperly switched certain voters to “other,” or an independent label — but some voters report that they were unable to check whether they were affected.
As previously reported by the Arizona Daily Independent, the secretary of state’s office warned in an email to county recorders last week that voters may be disenfranchised due to the recurring issue with the voter registration system linked to the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD), EZ Voter.
Those who wrote the word “party” after “Republican,” for example, had their party preference changed to “other” instead of “Republican” in the Access Voter Information Database (AVID) system.
“We are currently investigating an issue where EZ Voter transactions party preferences as of 1/17/2024 are now containing the word ‘Party’ at the end of the party preference value,” said the secretary of state’s office. “As a result, the current AVID system may set an EZ Voter party preference to ‘Other’ by default instead of one of the designated party preferences. This is currently impacting all recognized party preference values.”
Independents may not vote in the presidential preference elections, and with the registration deadline looming — Feb. 20 — the unreliability of the EZ Voter system remains a persistent source of concern.
The secretary of state’s office quickly noted in a follow-up email last week that they had resolved the issue and promised to provide a list of the incorrectly processed voter registration records, about 65, to all relevant counties.
“We are now focusing our efforts on providing a list to the counties of records that may have been incorrectly processed due to this change in the MVD system,” said the office. “As of right now we estimate there are around 65 records statewide that will need to be verified, we will distribute lists to counties once we have completed our efforts.”
Unfortunately, certain voters looking to verify immediately whether they were affected by the glitch reportedly experienced issues with the online databases. Voters reported that they were unable to check their registration status in a timely and efficient manner.
BREAKING: The Arizona Secretary of State has reported a "glitch" that is currently flipping Republican voter registrations to Independent ahead of the Republican primary election. And, @Adrian_Fontes and @MaricopaVote sites will not allow you to check your status at this time. pic.twitter.com/7qbJJ9d2Ul
— Zonie🌵 (@PHXAZ1852) January 23, 2024
After some time, some reported success with confirming their voter registration. The varied results in the public’s ability to confirm their voter registration status may be a harbinger of similar disenfranchisement issues experienced in the 2022 election.
Some activists recognized this pattern, claiming that the online portals’ unreliability qualifies as “voter suppression.”
Voter suppression already happening in Arizona. https://t.co/s2rHe5KtrE
— AZSuburbs 🌵 (@noprezzie2012) January 23, 2024
Last week’s fiasco wasn’t an isolated incident from the EZ Voter system. Unauthorized switches and cancellations of voter registrations occurred during the 2022 election, ultimately disenfranchising a number of voters and prompted doubts over the reliability of the election results in close races, such as the attorney general race.