Lawsuit: Arizona’s Elections Chief Is Hiding Info On 218K Voters Lacking Proof Of Citizenship
Arizona’s Democrat elections chief is illegally withholding the identities of approximately 218,000 registered voters on the state’s voter rolls who lack documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC), a lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.
Brought by the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona (SCFA) against Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and the Arizona Department of State, the legal challenge “seeks to restore public trust in [Arionza’s] electoral system by ensuring transparency about the Defendants’ failures to ensure that registered voters have provided DPOC, as required by law.” The group is represented by America First Legal and a law firm spearheaded by former Arizona Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright.
The lawsuit addresses an issue that first came to light last month, in which Arizona election officials announced they discovered approximately 98,000 registered “full-ballot” voters who have not provided documentary proof of citizenship required to participate in state and local elections. The error appears to have resulted “from the way the Motor Vehicle Division provides driver’s license information to the state’s voter registration system,” according to Votebeat Arizona.
Fontes said most of the affected voters are registered Republicans, according to the outlet.
In Arizona, voters registering via state registration form must show DPOC to vote in state and local races. Individuals who are unable to provide such documentation are registered as “federal-only” voters and can only cast ballots in federal races.
After the initial discovery, Fontes held a Sept. 10 phone call with Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, both Democrats, according to audio obtained by the Washington Post. In this call, they discussed, among other subjects, the possibility of filing what Fontes reportedly termed a “friendly lawsuit” designed to shift the issue to the courts, according to the outlet.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer filed such a suit, the Post noted, with the Arizona Supreme Court, arguing the voters in question should be classified as “federal-only” until they provide DPOC. Fontes and the Arizona GOP argued the opposite — that these voters should be granted full-ballot status for the general election since they are not at fault for the government’s “error.” Strong Communities Foundation for Arizona along with state resident Yvonne Cahill filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing the high court should mandate county recorders to “send full ballots to all Affected Voters on the early voting list,” but should also “order … all ballots returned by Affected Voters [to] be segregated pending confirmation of the voter’s citizenship.”
The Arizona Supreme Court ultimately sided with Fontes and the Arizona GOP, with Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer writing that the court is “unwilling on these facts to disenfranchise voters en masse from participating in state contests.”
Fontes announced on Monday, however, that his office has identified an additional 120,000 registered full-ballot voters — most of whom are Republicans — lacking DPOC, bringing the total number of affected electors to 218,000. The secretary’s office argued these newly discovered voters are covered by the Arizona Supreme Court’s recent decision.
According to its Wednesday lawsuit, SCFA “filed a valid public records request seeking the list of these individuals” in the interest of guaranteeing “transparency about the Defendants’ failures to ensure that registered voters have provided DPOC, as required by law.” The plaintiff alleges that Fontes and the Arizona Department of State “are stonewalling and have unlawfully refused to fulfill” its request in an apparent attempt to “insulat[e] themselves from embarrassment.”
“The Defendants’ summary denial of the Plaintiff’s reasonable and targeted public records request presupposes that the Plaintiffs bear the burden of justifying their request. However, this gets things exactly backward,” the lawsuit reads. “Public officers ‘bear the burden of showing that [a public records request] … pose[s] an unreasonable administrative burden’ and ‘must articulate sufficiently weighty reasons to tip the balance away from the presumption of disclosure and toward nondisclosure.’”
“Because the Defendants wrongfully denied the Plaintiff’s public records request, and because no exception to the Public Records Law applies, the Plaintiff files this special action to compel production of the requested public records,” it added.
[Read Next: Lawsuit: Arizona’s 15 Counties Are Failing To Remove Noncitizens From The Voter Rolls]
SCFA has asked the Maricopa County Superior Court to provide “special action relief” compelling Fontes and the Arizona Department of State “to produce or make available to the Plaintiff all public records requested by its [public records request] no later than October 7.”
In a statement provided to The Federalist, SCFA Chair Merissa Hamilton blasted Fontes for his “mismanagement of this seemingly never-ending debacle,” which she argued “has caused massive voter concerns and sowed doubt in election administration — [again].”
“The lack of transparency to our county recorders and refusal to provide them the databases they need to do their job in voter maintenance, impacting 5% of our voters, further begs us to ask, ‘What is [Fontes] hiding?’” she said. “The best way forward is to provide transparency and ease the voters’ concerns. This lawsuit intends [to] instill transparency and trust back into our election administration.”
The office of Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.
UPDATE
When pressed for comment on the lawsuit’s allegations, Fontes spokesman Aaron Thacker told The Federalist the secretary’s office does not “comment on pending litigation.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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