“This was a chance for Yavapai County to lead on the issue of Election Integrity, and I’m proud we did so,” said Brooks Compton, Chairman of the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors, referring to recent press coverage of the County’s utilization of the federal SAVE (System for Alien Verification and Entitlements) database to clean up its voter rolls.
County Recorder Michelle Burchill released a report which showed major improvements Yavapai County made to its own voter rolls, including removing non-citizens and deceased voters and promoting some Federal Only voters to a full ballot.
Yavapai is the first county in the state to use this system, and Burchill reported being surprised that she found both such a large number of deceased voters on the rolls, some of whose records were still active, and non-citizens, albeit in a much smaller quantity. Notably, several of the non-citizens were also on the active voter roll and at least one cast a provisional ballot. The Recorder’s office spoke with some of the non-citizens who confirmed they were not citizens and were then removed.
Left unresolved, at least for now, are some 268 records marked Unknown Citizenship. Efforts are ongoing to determine their status and to resolve each case properly, but Republicans who have been campaigning on the idea of cleaning up voter rolls have been taking a victory lap.
State Rep. John Gillette posted on X, “Outstanding work! This is precisely what I was directing in HB2806. HB2806 passed the Arizona State House and Senate with only Republican votes, but was not sent to Hobbs as she vowed to VETO this Bill. Her staff said it wasn’t needed. Your work proves her wrong again. Thanks for your leadership on this important issue.”
Outstanding work! This is precisely what I was directing in HB2806.
HB2806 passed the house and senate with Republican only votes, but was not sent to Hobbs as she vowed to VETO this Bill.
Her staff said it wasn't needed. Your work proves her wrong again. Thanks for your…
— Rep. John Gillette AZ House LD30 (@AzRepGillette) August 8, 2026
For his part, Supervisor Compton was equally pleased.
“It isn’t just about non-citizens, although they get a lot of the media attention,” said Compton. “We want accurate elections, which requires clean voter rolls. We have federal only voters who were promoted so they can vote the entire ballot now. We have deceased people no longer on the rolls, which makes the process safer and more efficient. This wouldn’t have been possible without the SAVE program, and right now a judge has it blocked in most of the country. We need to get every county in America using this program!”
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