Arizona Republicans say they’re fed up with Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes due to a glitch in the state’s voter registration data, which now suggests roughly 218,000 voters may not have provided proof of citizenship when registering.
Initially, the Secretary of State’s Office announced the flaw affected roughly 98,000 voters, but the glitch with the database, which incorrectly showed some people provided proof of citizenship when they applied for a driver’s license, actually affected an additional 120,000 voters.
Arizona law requires voters to prove citizenship to cast ballots in state and local races.
The Secretary of State’s Office denied a request by state Rep. Alexander Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) for the names and contact information of those voters.
“At times, the need to provide carefully vetted and correct information to protect Arizonans from harassment and undue turmoil outweighs the public’s desire for general access to public records,” the office wrote to Kolodin. “This is especially so, when the information sought is imperfect, potentially unreliable, undergoing rigorous evaluation and investigation, and if distributed haphazardly could lead to chaos, confusion, harassment, and create an overwhelming administrative burden on an office with limited resources during a time when those resources are already needed to carry out core administrative functions.”
The Republican lawmaker accused the office of playing games.
“We have only the vaguest information on them. We're heading into a high-stakes election and we'd kind of like to know, like, who they are,” Kolodin said.
He agreed that the secretary of state’s second announcement garnered a more hostile response.
“There's a feeling that this information on the second batch was intentionally withheld, and indeed on the first batch that they held it till right up until the election to sort of prevent time for adequate analysis,” Kolodin said.
Aaron Thacker, a spokesperson for the secretary of state, says the agency doesn’t want the list of names to be used as a hit list against Arizonans who may be legitimate citizens.
“We understand your frustration, we feel it too,” he said.
Thacker said attacks against the Secretary of State’s Office are either political or based on a lack of understanding.
“It's becoming damned if you do, damned if you don't, simply because people want to jump on conspiracy bandwagons and they want all the answers before the analysis has been done,” Thacker said.
He also noted that the Secretary of State’s Office didn’t create the problem but just announced that it exists. According to Thacker, it was a 12News report that alerted the office to the extra 120,000 voters that hadn’t initially been accounted for.
In a statement, Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda questioned Fontes’ ability to do his job.
“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 voters of Arizona have a total loss of confidence in Secretary Fontes. The AZGOP will continue to work toward transparency throughout our election process,” the statement read.
That statement was retweeted by Republican congressional candidate Abe Hamadeh, who has repeatedly claimed Arizona’s elections are not safe and secure — including the race for attorney general, which he lost in 2022.
“I also wonder how many of the STILL remaining 9,000 uncounted ballots also dealt with registration glitches that caused many to be wrongfully disenfranchised? My legal and investigative team have discovered over 1,000,” Hamadeh posted on social media following Fontes’ announcement this week.
Unsuccessful 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (who is now running for U.S. Senate) also pointed to the latest secretary of state’s announcement as an indicator that Arizona elections aren’t safe. Lake has also claimed many times that her loss was rigged.
“How do I project confidence if the number keeps changing?” Swoboda asked Tuesday.
Kolodin said this isn’t the end of the line, and there are a few options for him and the other Republicans to take going forward, and he wants it to get sorted out before the election.
“Because we know that after the election, it's gonna get wrapped up in the context of whatever the results were,” Kolodin said.
