An audit commissioned by Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has uncovered deep-seated issues with the state's ability to accurately track voter citizenship, a situation stretching back two decades. The audit, instigated following a discovery that noncitizens had been erroneously allowed to register to vote, places a spotlight on incompatibilities between state laws for obtaining driver licenses and voter registration policies. As reported by ABC15, approximately 218,000 voters may have registered without providing necessary proof of citizenship due to systemic database issues.
These findings were further dissected in a detailed report released last Saturday by the Governor's office, according to Votebeat. The origin of the error seems to root back to policies made by the Motor Vehicle Division on classifying driver’s licenses and a design flaw in the state's voter registration system. The audit suggests that to effectively rectify this problem, state officials must improve communication lines between the Motor Vehicle Division and the Secretary of State’s Office, responsible for maintaining voter rolls. "Finding regular time to share information and build relationships between the MVD and election officials will help eliminate issues in the future," the report indicates.
However, the audit also points out that, despite recent efforts to reprogram MVD and voter roll systems, the state law might still permit some U.S. nationals who are not citizens to slip through the cracks and register to vote; a passport is accepted as proof of citizenship, but passports can be issued to individuals like U.S. nationals from American Samoa and Swains Island, who do not have full citizen rights.
The current examination confirmed ABC15's earlier reporting that these database issues could have been identified and addressed years earlier. Indeed, back in 2016, an ABC15 story exposed the case of Alan Faygenblat who, despite being a non-citizen, managed to register to vote by exploiting the very loopholes now under scrutiny. Faygenblat described his actions as an experiment to see if the system really worked in staving off voter fraud. He was later criminally charged with false voter registration and entered a guilty plea in 2017, as "any person who got a driver's license after 1996 had to prove citizenship to the MVD," a recorder’s spokesperson explained to ABC15. Even then, the incident did not catalyze a change in the system.
The latest findings by the bipartisan audit add pressure on state and county elections officials to swiftly address the list of approximately 7,000 voters who have an inactive MVD record. These voters were able to cast a full ballot in the past election, but officials will need to initiate efforts to verify their citizenship statuses before any upcoming local elections. According to the comprehensive review shared by Votebeat, county recorders recently received a final list of affected voters that may need to be contacted to rectify the errors prior to future votes. Amid these findings, the auditors—two former county recorders themselves—have made clear the pressing necessity of system improvements to better safeguard the integrity of Arizona's electoral process.
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