mail in ballots
More Arizona Voters Coming Forward With Ballots They Received Not Addressed to Them

October 13, 2021

By Corinne Murdock |

Several more Arizona voters have come forward to AZ Free News to report they’ve been receiving ballots for voters that should’ve been removed from the rolls years ago – in at least one case, several decades. This report is not to say that this is a widespread issue, but to reflect the fact that AZ Free News has received more reports of this issue from concerned voters.

One voter, Christine Accurso, told AZ Free News that her cousin, Nadia, had moved from her residence to Kuwait a decade ago. Despite her and Nadia both telling Maricopa County for years that Nadia no longer resides in Arizona, the county has continued to send ballots in Nadia’s name to Accurso’s address. Now, Accurso has another ballot for her cousin for Maricopa County’s jurisdictional elections.

The struggles began several years after Maricopa County purportedly removed Nadia from the voter rolls in 2011 at Nadia’s request. As expected, no ballots arrived for Nadia in the 2012 and 2014 election cycles. (However: even if the county had neglected to remove Nadia from their voter rolls initially, Accurso added that Nadia wouldn’t have gotten a mail-in ballot. Nadia had only ever voted in person, and confirmed with Accurso that she’d never signed up for the Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL) or any opt-ins to receive her ballot by mail.)

Then in 2016, Accurso said that she received a mail-in ballot for her cousin. They both contacted the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. At first, they were relieved to hear from the office that Nadia would be removed immediately. Then 2018 came – and with it, another ballot for Nadia.

“The weirder thing is that we didn’t get [ballots] in 2012 or 2014 – for those other elections we didn’t get one for her. Then all of a sudden in 2016 we got one,” said Accurso. “The thing that bothers me the most is the fact that [Maricopa County has] been told multiple times [to remove her], and we’ve called and confirmed multiple times [that she was removed]. Then this year I got another one. Something is just wrong.”

AZ Free News was also informed that another individual received a ballot in 2020 for her husband, who’d been deceased for 20 years. That was the first year the deceased individual received a ballot, and for some of the family members it reportedly opened up old wounds connected to the loss.

Yet another concerned voter told AZ Free News that she received ballots for her son in 2018 and 2020 – despite the fact that he moved out of the state in 2017. She marked and returned the ballots to Maricopa County election officials both times to indicate that he no longer lived there.

“I haven’t checked [this year] to see if he still hasn’t been taken off of the [registered voter] list,” explained the voter. “I just remember thinking – how easy to cheat!”

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

*Correction – An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed Accurso’s cousin as her sister.

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