Arizona Supreme Court rules 98,000 people whose citizenship is unconfirmed can vote in pivotal election
Nearly 98,000 people whose U.S. citizenship has not been confirmed will be allowed to vote in the upcoming state and local elections, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The ruling came after a “coding oversight” in state software prompted the swing state’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to insist that he would send out ballots to those affected anyway.
The database error called into question the citizenship status of 100,000 registered Arizona voters, affecting individuals who obtained their driver’s licenses before October 1996, and subsequently received duplicates before registering to vote after 2004.
Fontes and Stephen Richer, the Republican Maricopa County recorder, disagreed on what status the voters should hold following the “coding oversight.”
ARIZONA’S PROOF OF CITZENSHIP LAW HEADS BACK TO COURT AMID FEARS OF NONCITIZEN VOTING
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes looks on during a House Administration Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. (Bonnie Cash/Getty Images)
“This was discovered not because somebody was voting illegally and not because somebody was attempting to vote illegally, as far as we can tell,” Fontes said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. “And this was basic voter roll maintenance, and it showed us that there is this issue.”
A voter fills out her ballot
