A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ordered Thursday that Arizona’s secretary of state office must provide a list of tens of thousands of voters who were wrongly classified as having access to the entire ballot due to a coding problem.
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ office first denied a public records request for the list made by America First Legal, an organization managed by Stephen Miller, a former aide to President Donald Trump. Fontes’ administration expressed concern about the list’s accuracy and the safety of the voters included.
Judge Scott Blaney stated that the court received no credible evidence that the information would be exploited or would incite violence or harassment against voters whose citizenship had not been verified. Blaney set a noon Monday deadline for Fontes’ office to produce a list of 98,000 voters, as well as the information Fontes used to announce in early October that even more voters had been affected, for a total of 218,000.
Arizona is one of the most widely watched states due to its presidential battleground status, and both camps have increased their presence in recent weeks to lure undecided voters. Federal races are unaffected by the coding error. However, the California Supreme Court ruled in September that misclassified voters, who account for around 5% of all uncertain voters, could still cast the complete ballot despite the fact that officials had not established whether they were US citizens.
That number of voters has the potential to swing the balance in close local and state races, as well as hotly contested ballot measures on abortion and immigration. Voters are almost evenly split between Democrats, Republicans, and no party.
Despite claiming that many more people were affected, Fontes has stated that he only possesses a list of 98,000 voters. His office announced Thursday that it is analyzing Blaney’s decision and considering its options.
Blaney prohibited Strong Communities Foundation and its legal counsel, America First Legal, from disclosing information obtained from Fontes’ office prior to Election Day on Tuesday to anyone other than county recorders, the Arizona Senate president and speaker of the Arizona House, and members of the elections committee.
America First Legal’s lawyer, James Rogers, said in a statement Thursday that the organization hopes the records will be used to authenticate the citizenship of voters on the list.
“It is unfortunate that Secretary Fontes so aggressively opposed our common-sense efforts to help restore trust in our state’s election system,” Rogers told the crowd.
The verdict also mandates Fontes’ office to share communications and data transmissions with many government organizations, including the Arizona Department of Transportation and Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office.
Voters were misclassified from federal-only to full-ballot voters due to a problem in state databases concerning drivers’ licenses and the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division.
Arizona is one of the few states that asks voters to show their citizenship before voting in local or state elections. Those who haven’t but have pledged to it under pain of law may only vote in federal elections.
The state regards driver’s licenses issued after October 1996 to be valid proof of citizenship. However, a coding error in the system incorrectly identified 218,000 voters who received licenses before 1996 as full-ballot voters, according to state officials.