By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — The head of the Arizona Republican Party claims there are at least 500,000 people registered to vote in the state who are dead or who have moved.

Gina Swoboda wants U.S. District Court Judge Eileen Willett to order Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to fix the problem and comply with requirements of the National Voter Registration Act. She, along with two others involved in GOP politics, also is asking the judge to order Fontes to “develop and implement additional reasonable and effective registration list-maintenance programs.”

Fontes declined to comment on the lawsuit that also was filed by Scot Mussi, president of the Republican-aligned Free Enterprise Club, and Steven Gaynor, who made an unsuccessful run as a Republican for secretary of state in 2018 and was briefly in the 2022 gubernatorial race before withdrawing.

The heart of the claim is that 14 of 15 Arizona counties have voter registration rates that are “implausibly high.”

Specifically, attorney Andrew Gould says there are more registered voters — both active and inactive — than there are residents who are 18 or older. And all the other counties with the exception of Greenlee have registration rates between 80 and 99%.

By contrast, he said, data from the U.S. Census Bureau puts the average figure nationally at 69.1%. And Gould, citing the same data, said the expected registration rate for Arizona should be 69.9%.

“Based on even the most conservative data sources, Arizona has at least 500,000 registered voters on the voter rolls who should have otherwise been removed,” he said.

Some of that, Gould said, is failing to remove those who have died from the rolls, something he said is required under the Voter Registration Act.

He said between December 2020 and the end of November 2022, about 143,278 Arizona citizens of voting age had died. But Gould said only 108,103 were removed from the rolls during that same period.

He said more than 750,000 confirmation notices were sent out to those listed on the registration rolls of Maricopa County alone to determine if they still lived at the location where they were registered. But Gould said fewer than 132,000 of those were removed “there are no reported voter responses or removals by the secretary (of state) accounting for the status of the remaining 620,000 notice letters.”

According to the lawsuit, Fontes has admitted to legislative leaders he has not implemented a program under the National Voter Registration Act to remove ineligible voters from the rolls.

For example, in a January report, Fontes said there were 26,682 individuals whose names have been reported to his office as having obtained a driver’s license or equivalent ID in another state.

That report also requires him to say the number of notices sent notices of cancellation, the number placed in inactive status, and the number that actually have been canceled. In each case, he reported, the “process is in development.”

Ditto how he is dealing with 633 individuals who said on a jury questionnaire they are not U.S. citizens.

What makes all this important — and what Gould said gives his clients the right to go to federal court and sue — is they have an interest in the voter rolls being as clean as possible.

“Because the secretary does not maintain accurate voter rolls, ineligible voters have an opportunity to vote in Arizona elections, risking the dilution of plaintiffs’ legitimate votes,” the lawsuit states.
But it does not provide any example of people casting ballots who did not have the right. And he said there’s a reason that known cases are small.

“Arizona is not well equipped to detect fraud,” he told the court.
“For example, Arizona has no system in place to detect when people vote in multiple states,” Gould said. “While the Electronic Registration Information Center can reveal whether voters have moved out of state, 50% of states do not participate in that voluntary program.”

What Gould did not say is it has been Republican-controlled states that have withdrawn from ERIC amid concerns about privacy and confidentiality of voter information.

Gould told the court that isn’t all.

“Arizona’s inaccurate rolls undermine plaintiffs’ confidence in the integrity of Arizona elections, which also burdens their right to vote,” he wrote.

No date has been set for a hearing.