Jen Fifield for Votebeat:
The 98,000 Arizona voters whose eligibility has been in limbo because of a system error that was discovered earlier this month will be allowed to vote a full ballot in November, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Friday.
These voters had been erroneously marked in the state’s system as having provided documented proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, when in reality, it is unclear whether they did so. Arizona requires such documentation in order to vote in state and local elections. Voters who are unable to provide it are added to a separate roll of “federal only” voters, and can cast ballots only in presidential and congressional races.
The error had been occurring for roughly two decades before Maricopa County election officials flagged the problem earlier this month. The affected voters are all longtime residents of the state, and many have been on the rolls for years.
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, asked the Arizona Supreme Court on Sept. 17 to determine whether the voters affected by the glitch should be permitted to vote a full ballot in this year’s election, or one with only federal races.
The Arizona Supreme Court moved quickly. Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote that, because it was unclear whether the voters had provided proof of citizenship in the past, counties could not legally remove them from the voter rolls. The court was especially reluctant to do so, she wrote, because of how close it is to Election Day.
“We are unwilling on these facts to disenfranchise voters en masse from participating in state contests,” Timmer wrote. “Doing so is not authorized by state law and would violate principles of due process.”….
The decision buys election officials time to determine next steps for impacted voters — but they must still work to come up with solutions. Affected voters will need to prove their citizenship to vote a full ballot in future elections.
Officials said Thursday that they were hoping to use federal tools to whittle down the list of voters caught in the coding error by performing additional citizenship checks.