Thousands of Ballots Cast in Arizona 2020 Election without Proof of US Citizenship

More than 5,600 federal-only ballots were cast in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election because there was no evidence of U.S. citizenship required of the voters who cast them.

Arizona has an uncommon condition of bifurcated elections, in which residents who present confirmation of U.S. citizenship can vote in all elections, while others can only vote in federal elections, resulting in ballots cast by voters who have not established their U.S. citizenship.

The voting anomaly was uncovered by Just the News.

Residents registering to vote in Arizona must produce proof of U.S. citizenship, according to state law. However, following the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision that Arizona must accept U.S. voter registration forms due to federal requirements under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, the state now allows residents registering to vote who do not provide proof of citizenship to receive ballots only for federal races.

Only a sworn declaration that the person is a U.S. citizen is required on federal voter registration forms.

When Arizona residents register to vote or amend their registration, an election system analyzes their driver’s license information to verify their citizenship.

According to the Associated Press, those without papers are ineligible to vote in state elections and are enrolled as “federal-only” voters.

Arizona passed legislation last year requiring counties to check federal-only voters for citizenship against numerous databases.

Any federal petitions must be rejected if the applicant is not a U.S. citizen, and any official who deliberately disregards the rule faces a criminal conviction.

According to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the Justice Department will sue Arizona over the bill in July 2022, alleging it is a “textbook violation of the National Voter Registration Act.”

The agency also alleges that the statute is in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Former Arizona Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright told Just the News on Thursday that she believes Arizona is “one of the only states to have bifurcated elections” because the US Election Assistance Commission refused to allow the state to require driver’s licenses for voter registration, despite the fact that other states do.

Wright stated that when a person registers to vote, county recorders are expected to match their name to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ SAVE database to discover if they are non-citizens.

While there is no mechanism in place to guarantee that recorders are not enrolling non-citizens, state law requires them to only register residents and confirm that the voter list is valid, she noted, citing A.R.S. 16-183 and A.R.S. 16-169A.

If non-citizens register to vote before becoming naturalized citizens, their naturalization may be hampered.

Indeed, according to a research released earlier this year by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the most common reason for a foreign national to admit to being registered to vote is that “they want to remain in the United States as future naturalized citizens.”

Foreign immigrants are questioned if they have prematurely registered to vote during the citizenship application process.

According to the article, if there exist voter registration records, “they are frequently ordered by immigration officials to have said records canceled.”

According to the PILF research, 222 foreign national voter registrations in Maricopa County have been revoked since 2015, with nine of them voting in four federal elections.

The following is a list of 13 of the 15 Arizona counties that provided Just the News with information about the number of federal-only ballots cast in the 2020 and 2022 general elections, as well as the number of federal-only voters registered in both elections.

Despite several attempts, Apache County did not supply Just the News with the desired information.

To access the information, Cochise County needed a public records request, and the county notified Just the News on Wednesday that the request for the federal-only votes and voter information was number 125 in the queue.

However, according to state law, “the county recorder shall report to the secretary of state and shall prominently post on the recorder’s website the number of persons who are registered to vote using the federal or state voter registration form and who have not provided proof of citizenship to the county recorder and, after each general election, shall post on the recorder’s website the number of ballots cast by those persons who were eligible to vote a ballot containing federal offices only,” the report noted.

In Arizona, at least 5,697 federal-only ballots were cast in the 2020 presidential election, with Maricopa County accounting for the majority of them.

Only a few counties indicated whether or not all federal-only ballots cast were recognized.

Former President Donald Trump received 10,457 fewer votes than President Joe Biden in the state in the 2020 presidential election.

The statistics supplied to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office roughly a month before the elections, which include both active and inactive voters (stated below as “all federal-only voters”), provided information for several counties on federal-only registered voters.

Other counties supplied active federal-only registered voters. Voters are marked as ‘inactive’ if voting materials provided to their address are returned as undeliverable.

The following is the voter data, as provided by the Just the News report.

All federal-only voters registered in 2020: 162
All federal-only voters registered in 2022: 97

All federal-only voters registered in 2020: 288
All federal-only voters registered in 2022: 297

Federal-only ballots accepted and counted in 2020: 335
Federal-only ballots accepted and counted in 2022: 116
All federal-only voters registered in 2020: 2,381
All federal-only voters registered in 2022: 2,841

Federal-only ballots cast and accepted in 2020: 23
Federal-only ballots cast and accepted in 2022: 5
All federal-only voters registered in 2020: 88
All federal-only voters registered in 2022: 67

Federal-only ballots cast and counted in 2020: 8
Federal-only ballots cast and counted in 2022: 5
All federal-only voters registered in 2020: 40
All federal-only voters registered in 2022: 45

Federal-only ballots cast in 2020 and accepted: 4
Federal-only ballots cast in 2022 and accepted: 1
All federal-only voters registered in 2020: 9
All federal-only voters registered in 2022: 6

Federal-only ballots cast in 2020: 11
Federal-only ballots cast in 2022: 0
All federal-only voters registered in 2020: 27
All federal-only voters registered in 2022: 16

Federal-only ballots cast in 2020: 8,114, with 4,484 of those accepted and counted
Federal-only ballots cast in 2022: 2,749
Federal-only voters registered in 2020: 14,298
All federal-only voters registered in 2022: 27,441