Pinal County required existing voters to show proof of citizenship, but then backed down

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Pinal County, Arizona, incorrectly told hundreds of longtime residents that they would need to show proof of citizenship before they could vote in Tuesday's election.

The county's decision to flag the registrations of these voters came to light when some of the voters attempted to vote early in Tuesday's election and were shortly thereafter informed by the county recorder's office that they did so before 7:00 p.m. on Election Day They had to present proof of citizenship in order for their ballot to count.

The office reversed that decision after a meeting with the secretary of state's office on Friday. Those voters — nearly 900 — will no longer be required to show proof of citizenship, County Recorder Dana Lewis said Friday evening.

If voters had already tried to vote early and the ballot was then put on hold, those ballots will now be counted. Others who haven't voted yet won't see a problem if they go to vote, she said.

James Wilson, a resident of the City of Maricopa, was one of the voters whose registrations were mislabeled.

He told Votebeat on Friday afternoon that he dropped off his early ballot in a mailbox on Wednesday, and was told on Wednesday evening that he would need to provide proof of citizenship.

“I thought, oh crap, I’m going to have to jump through hoops,” he said.

However, on Friday evening, after Votebeat began asking the county and the secretary of state's office questions about the issue, Wilson received a call from the recorder's office saying that was no longer the case and his ballot would be counted. He said he was happy but still frustrated about having to deal with the issue.

Another voter contacted the Election Protection Arizona hotline, run by a coalition of organizations, at 1-866-OUR-VOTE. The coalition reached out to the secretary of state's office and Lewis on Friday, said Alex Gulotta, Arizona director of All Voting Is Local.

The affected voters had attempted to update their voter registration shortly before the October 7 voter registration deadline. The county had reported these registrations because the county had made changes to the way it processed voter registration forms in response to two separate court decisions. Both concerned state law requirements for voters to prove their citizenship.

Arizona has a unique law that requires proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections. Federal law requires applicants only to confirm their citizenship in order to vote. If an Arizona applicant does not provide proof of citizenship, they will be placed on a “federal only” voter list and will only be allowed to vote in federal elections such as presidential and congressional elections.

In the first recent court decision related to state proof-of-citizenship laws, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Aug. 22 that county clerks should reject voter registration forms entirely from voters who register using a state form and do not provide proof of the Present citizenship. Previously, these voters were registered as pure federal voters. The ruling will remain in effect until the courts can fully review the case.

The second court decision came after the state realized that a problem with the Motor Vehicle Division's database had allowed about 218,000 long-time driver's license holders to become full voters despite not providing proof of citizenship. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on September 20 that those voters would not be required to provide proof of citizenship until after the November election.

However, shortly after the state discovered the MVD problem, the state reprogrammed its system to flag these 218,000 voters when they attempted to change their voter rolls to inform counties that they had not yet provided proof of citizenship. The Secretary of State's Office issued guidance to county clerks in early October, telling them that even though the system was flagging these voters, it should continue to allow them to cast their full ballot until after November.

Instead, from the time the state system was reprogrammed through the Oct. 7 voter registration deadline, if a voter in Pinal County on that list of 218,000 voters tried to update their voter list using a state form, the county flagged their registration until they provided proof of citizenship.

The county sent at least some of those residents a letter informing them that they would need to show proof of citizenship before voting.

This was true even until 5pm on Friday, when Lewis posted a video on social media platform

Votebeat spoke to Lewis on Friday around 7 p.m. She said the county had just met with the Secretary of State's office to review the list of voters affected by the MVD issue and concluded that most of those who had been notified would no longer be required to provide proof of citizenship .

Shortly thereafter, the admissions office deleted the video.

Correction, November 2nd: This article originally incorrectly stated that the August 22nd decision came from the Arizona SuSupreme Court.

Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at [email protected].