Maricopa County Attorney Mitchell finds 8 noncitizens voted in past elections

After a controversial federal database suggested as many as 60 noncitizens cast ballots in past Maricopa County elections, an investigation by County Attorney Rachel Mitchell found that number was much lower.

Republican Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap used the federal SAVE database to identify 207 suspected noncitizens who had registered to vote in the county, including 60 who had actually cast ballots.

He referred those findings to Mitchell, a Republican, for further investigation.

On Monday, Mitchell announced that her investigators verified that 52 of the individuals identified by the SAVE database who had voted were actually U.S. citizens.

Heap announced the referral earlier this year, shortly after appearing alongside former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who visited Arizona in February to promote the Republican-backed SAVE Act and made unfounded claims that voter fraud is rampant in Arizona elections.

Mitchell’s findings challenge that narrative.

And they fall in line with investigations in other states, which have shown that voting by noncitizens is exceedingly rare and the SAVE database has a penchant for erroneously flagging U.S. citizens.

Mitchell said missing pieces of information in the records available to the database resulted in the system flagging U.S. citizens.

“Obviously, some of those missing pieces of information, when filled out, showed that 52 of them were citizens,” Mitchell said.

Despite the low accuracy rate, Mitchell said she still supports using the SAVE database to check voter registration after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that election officials can continue to use it.

“I do think it's a tool, and so it's something valuable to us to continue to use or for the recorders to use, but we have to understand that every tool has limitations,” Mitchell said.

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said the SAVE database can be a "necessary tool” to ensure the accuracy of voter rolls. And he directed counties to continue using it in line with the Supreme Court decision, but he expressed concerns about the system’s accuracy.

“And it is critical to remember that data in the SAVE system must be verified before it is ever used to disqualify a voter,” he said in a statement.

Noncitizen voters

The eight noncitizen voters had each cast at least one ballot in an election in Maricopa County between 2012 and 2025.

“I recognize your voice is your vote, and though our findings today would not change the outcome of any past election, every ineligible voter dilutes the vote of a citizen, and it's crucial that we fix this going forward,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said her office found no evidence of coordination amongst any of the individuals involved. One was a registered Democrat; two were registered Republicans; and five were independent, unaffiliated with a political party.

She said most of the fraudulent voter registrations appear connected to a well-documented driver’s license glitch identified by former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer in 2024.

That glitch allowed anyone who first received their Arizona driver’s license before Oct. 1, 1996, to register to vote when they renewed their license in the future without providing proof of citizenship. That’s a problem, because Arizona law requires documented proof of citizenship to vote, but Arizona did not begin requiring that proof to obtain a driver’s license until Oct. 1, 1996.

“And the MVD system basically grandfathered them in and treated them as though they had provided proof of citizenship, and then at some point there is a registering to vote,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said seven of the eight noncitizens identified by her office were not registered to vote until they renewed their drivers license.

The eighth person submitted a handwritten form in 2012 that identified the person as “not a U.S. citizen,” Mitchell said.

She added, “Somehow the form still made it to the Recorder's Office in 2012, and he was placed on the voter roll.”

Mitchell has not made any decision on whether to pursue criminal charges against any of the people who illegally cast a ballot, which is a felony in Arizona. She said the act of voting as a noncitizen is a violation of the law, whether or not the person intentionally defrauded the system.

“That said, understand that I would look at that in terms of whether a jury would be willing to convict when somebody is not, or at least I cannot show, that that person intentionally even registered to vote,” she said.

Calling for change

Right now, federal law requires states to give people the opportunity to register to vote when they update their drivers license or other information with state motor vehicle agencies.

But Mitchell said she believes there are problems with how that requirement is being implemented by the state Motor Vehicle Division and private third-party businesses that offer MVD services.

For instance, she said that the individuals interviewed by her office did not remember registering to vote and she suggested that could be a result of a failure to verify information on drivers license renewal forms, including the voter registration option, before processing the form.

“Interestingly, one of our own detectives who was investigating these cases ran into this problem when renewing his license during the pendency of our investigation,” Mitchell said. “No one showed him any of the information on the screen so that he could verify that it was correct before asking him to sign a digital pad that only had room for his signature.”

Mitchell is calling for improved training for staff that handles those transactions.

And she wants state lawmakers to make changes to the state’s voter registration systems to prevent the issue in the future and said her office is working on legislation it plans to propose during the next legislative session, which starts in January.

That includes changes to the way the state complies with the so-called Motor Voter Act, including looking at how voter registration can be separated from drivers license renewals.

“Now, the law in Arizona and the Voter Motor Voter Act requires that they have the opportunity to register to vote at the same time and place as getting their driver's licenses, but what it doesn't require is – it doesn't require that there be an overlapping of the data.”

Ongoing investigations

Mitchell said her office is still investigating the remaining 147 individuals flagged by Heap and the SAVE database who are registered to vote but did not actually cast a ballot.

“I think there are probably about 20 more that we need to look at,” Mitchell said.

Tim Agne

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KJZZ

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ Office is also conducting its own investigation into the same set of 207 individuals first flagged by Heap.

Heap did not send information on the alleged noncitizen voters to the Mayes, a Democrat, until May, months after the Attorney General’s Office requested it under a state law requiring the recorder to refer cases involving noncitizen voters to both the county attorney and attorney general.

Richie Taylor, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, said it has worked with the county attorney’s office on the investigation.

“Our investigation is ongoing,” he said. “As you might know we didn’t get these referrals from Heap until about three months after MCAO. Heap refused to send them to us for many months.”

In a statement, Heap said Mitchell's announcement shows the system working as it should.

"Our office takes seriously its legal responsibility to protect the integrity and accuracy of Maricopa County’s voter rolls," according to the statement. "The potential non-citizens were flagged by the Arizona MVD database, and our office could not confirm their citizenship using the federal SAVE database or other records we have access to. In such cases we are required by law to refer those names to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for investigation."

He added, "No final action is taken until the investigation is complete. We will continue aggressively pursuing accurate voter rolls while ensuring that every eligible voter is protected.”

However, Votebeat reported that Heap had moved the 207 voters into a "not eligible," status, meaning they remain on the voter rolls but must prove their citizenship to vote in the future.