By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — A group that wants checks of whether some voters are citizens got access Monday to the names of about 218,000 Arizonans who may not have provided such proof.

The move came after the state Court of Appeals in a brief order Monday rejected a bid by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to keep the list from being given to Strong Communities Foundation. Appellate Judge Michael Catlett, writing for the three-judge panel, said Fontes had provided no proof that Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney had committed any legal or factual error in ordering the secretary to surrender the information.

Fontes made it clear he still believes there could be harms from releasing the names, making the voters on the list subject to harassment and threats from “election deniers.”

But spokesman Aaron Thacker said the court has spoken.

“He does believe in the law at the end of the day,” Thacker said.

Merissa Hamilton, who heads the organization that operates as EZAZ.org, said it’s not the intent to pester voters. In fact, she pointed out, the court order precludes members of her organization from directly contacting anyone on that list before Wednesday.

Instead, Hamilton said, those names are most immediately going to be turned over to the 15 county recorders.

That, she said, will allow them to do what they can to verify whether those on the list are in fact eligible to cast full ballots ahead of the next election.

But nothing in the court order precludes anyone else who gets the information from using it in an effort to prove the outcome was affected by illegal voters.

Blaney’s order does permit Hamilton to give a copy to the president of the Senate, the speaker of the House and the members of the Elections committees of both chambers. Some of the members of those panels have made it clear they still question the results of the 2020 and 2022 elections.

The dispute over whether any of the 218,000 on the list might — all of whom the Arizona Supreme Court ruled could vote in this election — could provide fresh fodder for those who lose their elections to mount legal challenges. That is especially true as the number of voters on that list could far exceed the margins of victory in some close races.

That was the case four years ago when Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden by 10,457 votes.

In 2022 Republican Kari Lake — now running for Senate — lost the gubernatorial race to Katie Hobbs by 17,117 votes. And Democrat Kris Mayes won the race for attorney general over Abe Hamadeh by just 280 votes.

But Hamilton also told Capitol Media Services there’s another side to that release of the list to the recorders. She said it could help prevent some legal voters from being disenfranchised.

In at least two counties, some people were told they could not cast a ballot because they lacked proof of citizenship.

Taylor Kinnerup of the Maricopa Couty Recorder’s Office said that happened when those on a version of the list tried to change their registration. She said their early ballots they cast then were put into “suspense.”

Kinnerup said, though, all that has been cleared up, especially since the Supreme Court made it clear everyone on that list is entitled to cast a full ballot, at least this year, while the voter registration database problems are worked out.

There were similar problems in Pinal County.

But Hamilton also said she believes there are, in fact, at least some names on that list of people who are not citizens. Hamilton now wants recorders to compare those names with federal databases to cleanse the rolls before the next election.

Still, she conceded that, when all is said and done, she’s not anticipating a lot of folks will be knocked off the voter rolls.

“I expect that a super majority of the voters on that list are citizens,” Hamilton told Capitol Media Services. “I expect it to be only a tiny amount that aren’t.”

She said, though, the new glitch that took some folks off the rolls, at least temporarily, does not provide her with confidence.

“I just don’t think that we can have faith right now in how the MVD system is being managed,” Hamilton said, who wants an independent audit, separate from one ordered by Gov. Katie Hobbs.

The issue stems from a 2004 voter-approved law that requires proof of citizenship to register and vote.

That statute also says proof could be verified by the registrant providing the number on an Arizona driver’s licensed issued after Oct. 1, 1996. That is the effective date of a separate law requiring proof of legal presence to get a license.

What MVD reported to county election officials wasn’t always the date of that original license but instead the date someone got a duplicate license or made a change of address. And if that date was after Oct. 1, 1996, recorders presumed there was proof of citizenship on file — and the person was entitled to register to vote — even though that did not exist.

The glitch was discovered when Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer discovered one person who had been registered who was not, in fact, a citizen despite the MVD certification.

That list initially was estimated at 98,000 but grew to about 218,000 when other problems were discovered in the link between MVD’s database and what was being provided to counties.

Fontes then filed a “friendly” lawsuit against Fontes, asking the Supreme Court whether those affected should be allowed to vote a full ballot this year. The alternative was permitting them to vote only in the presidential and congressional races as federal law does not require citizenship proof.
That led to the court order allowing everyone on the list to vote a full ballot.

The justices acknowledged there may not be the legally required “documented proof of citizenship” on file because of that glitch. But they said given the timing — and that given everyone on the list appears to have been in Arizona since before October 1996 — they did not want to risk disenfranchising legitimate voters.

In the meantime, Stronger Communities demanded its own copy of the list.

Fontes acknowledged that is a public record. In fact, the entire voter registration file is public.

But he argued releasing it could lead to threats and intimidation of voters — and even possible violence — something he said fits within the exception of the law that allows public records to be withheld in the “best interests of the state.”

Blaney, however, noted Hamilton testified her organization wasn’t going to use it to contact voters but instead turn it over only to county recorders and certain state legislators.

Fontes’ then argued to the Court of Appeals that was a mistake.
“Plaintiff wants that information despite the fact it is entirely unreliable, likely to be weaponized, and may place those Arizonans in harms’ way,” wrote Craig Morgan for the secretary. He said Blaney ignored “essentially uncontradicted evidence” from a University of Chicago professor who is an expert on political violence that release “will lead to an exponential increase in the likelihood of harm or harassment to those individuals.”

The appellate court, however, found no problem with Blaney’s conclusion.