September 30, 2024 – Arizona voter registration policies failed to check citizenship and affects 218,000 voters; phone conversation of officials leaked

The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office announced Monday night that approximately 120,000 more voter registrations were discovered to have not been checked for citizenship, more than double the previous estimate.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that a supposed error in the Arizona Motor Vehicle Department’s (MVD) system caused nearly 100,000 voter registrations to be validated without properly verifying the registrants’ citizenship.

According to officials, this issue has existed for 20 years, allowing individuals who received a driver’s license before 1996 to vote without citizenship verification.

The issue was discovered on or before September 10 but not announced until September 17. Now, roughly two weeks later, we’re learning that it’s a much, much larger issue. So much for transparency!

It appears that the Secretary of State’s Office may have known the actual number of affected voters as early as last week. The Gateway Pundit spoke to Arizona GOP Chairwoman Gina Swoboda after she sounded the alarm on another election integrity issue that she was notified about on Friday, though she was provided no details.

In our conversation, Swoboda revealed the lack of transparency from the Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, who was supposed to meet with her today to debrief her on an issue. Suspiciously, the meeting was postponed on Friday until the “right time” on Monday, the same day Runbeck Election Services began printing ballots in Maricopa County, according to a statement.

However, Swoboda told The Gateway Pundit on Monday evening that she’s heard nothing but “radio silence” from Adrian Fontes. He then dropped a bombshell revealing that nearly 218,000 voters were registered in Arizona without proper citizenship verification!

“As with the initial group of Arizonans, certain individuals were mistakenly marked as having provided documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) pursuant to Arizona’s Proposition 200 requiring DPOC to vote in state and local elections,” reads a press release from the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.

All of the impacted voters will still be able to vote as planned in local races, but this is a serious red flag regarding the administration of elections in Arizona.

Even Democrat Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, who ironically is criminally charging 18 conservatives for challenging the 2020 election, admitted that all of the elections over the last 20 years “are challengeable” and worried that Republican voters and so-called election deniers are “going to be calling for a new election.”

Arizona Governor and former Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who oversaw the rigged 2020 and 2022 elections, also said that the missing citizenship verification validates “theories about illegal voting in our elections.” She also admitted, “They’re going to be calling for new 2020 and ’22 elections.”

As The Gateway Pundit reported on Sunday, Hobbs and Mayes made these statements in a September 10 phone call with Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes that was later leaked to the Washington Post.

The phone call also revealed that the officials conspired and cooked up a bogus “friendly lawsuit” filed by so-called Republican hatchetman Stephen Richer in his capacity as Maricopa County Recorder.

The officials were worried they would come under fire for removing the voters, who they claim are mostly Republicans, from the rolls or downgrading their ballot to federal races only.

Arizona law allows voters who do not provide documentary proof of citizenship to vote only in federal elections, in accordance with federal law.

So, they schemed to employ Stephen Richer, a RINO, to file the lawsuit, asking that the court designate the mostly Republican registrants as “federal only” voters and strip their ability to vote a full ballot with state and local races and ballot measures.

The emergency lawsuit, filed in the State’s highest court, was quickly ruled upon, and affected voters will still be allowed to vote on a full ballot.

“The public, impacted stakeholders, and the Arizona Supreme Court were misled as to the extent of the issue and its effect on Arizona’s voter registration records,” the Arizona GOP said in a statement.

Press release from the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office:

PHOENIX – Today, the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office released additional information about a new set of approximately 120,000 Arizonans who may be affected by a data coding oversight within ADOT’s Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) and Arizona voter registration databases—individuals who have lived in the state for decades and have attested under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens.

This data set includes approximately 79,000 Republicans, 61,000 Democrats, and 76,000 Other Party (OTH), bringing the total of impacted individuals to approximately 218,000.

In spite of the evolving situation, the Supreme Court’s underlying September 20^th decision about this issue stands. As with the initial group of Arizonans, certain individuals were mistakenly marked as having provided documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) pursuant to Arizona’s Proposition 200 requiring DPOC to vote in state and local elections.

All agencies continue to work together in real time to resolve this matter. The Arizona voter registration database now has the correctly flagged the impacted individuals as needing proof of citizenship.

Election officials will contact the affected Arizonans with information regarding their status after the conclusion of this General Election if necessary. In the meantime, all individuals included in the database error remain eligible to vote a full ballot. This will give election officials the opportunity to verify that everyone affected truly is required to provide documentary proof of citizenship.

“Let’s be clear, Prop 200 is an extreme law that attempts to solve a problem that is vanishingly rare,” said Secretary Fontes. “The reality is these registrants have met the same legal standard as every other American who registers to vote: swearing under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. We can’t risk denying actual citizens the right to vote due to an error out of their control. This issue is another example of why we need to fund elections, update systems and staff, and carry forward our proven tradition of safe, fair and secure elections.”

Similar to the initial announcement, the newly discovered issue pertains to misclassification of voters with a driver’s license issued before 1996.

Arizona requires residents to provide DPOC to vote in state and local elections. In data shared with the secretary of state’s office, MVD has been classifying these individuals with older credentials, from whom MVD never collected proof of authorized presence due to their original credential issue date, as having provided DPOC.

Staff and experts from the Secretary of State’s Office are continuing to work with MVD to investigate if additional voters are impacted, or if other similar errors stemming from improperly coded Proposition 200 rules exist. We will continue to keep the public informed of developments if and when we have accurate, confirmed information to share.

The Republican Party of Arizona responded to the news, condemning Fontes for providing “little transparency on the root cause or immediate solution” and calling on him to immediately publish records and deliver lists of the impacted voters to County Recorders.

Full statement below:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AZGOP Chair Gina Swoboda Responds to Secretary of State Fontes’ Repeated Voter Roll Failures

Arizona is facing a significant voter registration crisis as Secretary of State Adrian Fontes revealed today that over 218,000 voters were improperly recorded as having provided proof of citizenship, a requirement for voting in state and local elections.

This figure is more than double from initial estimates and raises major concerns about the integrity of Arizona’s voter rolls just weeks before the upcoming election. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes announced the error, which affects more Republicans than Democrats, but provided little transparency on the root cause or immediate solution.

In response to this alarming discovery, @AZGOP Chair @GinaSwoboda issued the following statement:

“Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has repeatedly demonstrated a complete inability to execute the core functions of his position. The public, impacted stakeholders, and the Arizona Supreme Court were misled as to the extent of the issue and its effect on Arizona’s voter registration records.

The AZGOP demands that Secretary Fontes IMMEDIATELY make public the SQL query used to determine the voter records impacted by this error and that his office IMMEDIATELY deliver the list of impacted voters to all 15 county recorders.

Secretary Fontes’ desire for a top-down system continues to shut out our county recorders who are the ONLY officials empowered by Arizona statute to process voter registration record changes.

This is a sad day for transparency.

The voters of Arizona have a total loss of confidence in Secretary Fontes. The AZGOP will continue to work toward transparency throughout our election process.

A message to our voters from your chair: Do NOT allow these people to dissuade you from voting.

We. Are. Winning. VOTE!”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AZGOP Chair Gina Swoboda Responds to Secretary of State Fontes’ Repeated Voter Roll Failures

Arizona is facing a significant voter registration crisis as Secretary of State Adrian Fontes revealed today that over 218,000 voters were improperly recorded…

— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) October 1, 2024

(The Gateway Pundit, 9/30/2024)  (Archive)

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(Timeline editor’s note: The Washington Post article reveals more of the phone conversation between Hobbs, Fontes, and Mayes. I managed to find an archived copy and thought I would highlight some of what was said.) 

Arizona’s Democratic leaders knew they had no good options when they jumped on a phone call this month. They had just learned tens of thousands of residents had been registered to vote for decades, even though there was no record they had provided proof of citizenship — a requirement under state law.

Their predicament was “an urgent, a dire situation,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said, according to audio of the call obtained by The Washington Post. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said critics would “beat us up no matter what the hell we do.” Attorney General Kris Mayes worried they would be accused of rigging the 2024 election in a crucial state.

“When this goes public, it is going to have all of the conspiracy theorists in the globe — in the world — coming back to re-litigate the past three elections, at least in Arizona,” Hobbs said. “And it’s going to validate all of their theories about illegal voting in our elections, even though we all know that’s not true.”

…

“Think about all of the 82-year-olds in wheelchairs who are not going to be able to make it to the polls and sure as hell aren’t going to, like, be able to find their f—ing driver’s licenses or birth certificates in time,” said Mayes, the attorney general.

…

“They’re going to beat us up no matter what the hell we do, no matter what the hell we say.”

…

Hobbs noted “conspiracy theorists” could run wild with the situation and said they needed to be “as proactive as possible to look like we are taking every single action possible to shore up the confidence in our voting system.”

“If I was in your shoes, secretary, I would take those 148,000 voters and move them to fed-only and do everything I could to provide the resources for the counties to deal with that additional burden and to ensure the confidence in the system,” said Hobbs. “I’m sure that there’s a very small percentage of those voters that are not actually eligible.”

…

Mayes rebuffed that idea, noting the list included more Republicans than Democrats.

“If we do what you’re talking about, we’re talking about disenfranchising probably tens of thousands of Republican voters,” Mayes said, emphasizing the political heat they would take for such a move.

Fontes sided with Mayes, saying, “I have no intention of notifying 148,000 voters at this stage of the game that they have to scramble around when the state of Arizona has been providing them full ballots all this time.”