This should be especially alarming since the number of voters who haven’t provided proof of citizenship and cannot be confirmed as citizens has increased by over 32% since last October in Maricopa County. Arizona law requires that voter registrants must provide documentary proof of citizenship. However, these federal-only voters are allowed to register to vote in federal races because a Supreme Court decision from 2013 held that federal law does not allow states to ask for documentary proof of citizenship in federal races such as for Congress and the U.S. Senate. And that may even extend for presidential electors (the issue being litigated right now). For federal races, voters only need to attest to being a citizen by checking a box on the federal voter registration form and signing the form. Only a little over 10,000 votes determined the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election in Arizona, yet over 26,000 federal-only voters are currently registered to vote in Maricopa County.
The AFL letter went to all 15 Arizona County Recorders as a reminder of their obligation “to remove foreign citizens” from their voter rolls. It outlines additional tools the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has available, as codified by Congress under 8 U.S.C. § 1373 and 8 U.S.C. § 1644, to assist county recorders in their legal obligations to ensure only U.S. citizens are registered to vote.
According to the letter, Arizona law requires recorders “to consult ‘relevant federal databases to which the county recorder has access to confirm information obtained that requires cancellation of registrations,’” per A.R.S. § 16-165(K).
While it’s a state and federal crime for foreign nationals to register to vote, just making something illegal doesn’t prevent bad actors from breaking the law like other crimes. In fact, under the Trump administration, ICE indicted 19 foreign nationals for voting in the 2016 election illegally.
Since Arizona is a border state, why wouldn’t county recorders in Arizona want to make sure they are utilizing every possible tool to prevent foreign nationals from accessing a ballot in our election? And what more can they do to protect our voting rights and ensure citizens’ votes aren’t effectively neutralized by a foreign national illegally casting a ballot?
AFL brilliantly provides a path by using federal statutes, 8 U.S.C. § 1373 and 8 U.S.C. § 1644, that require DHS to provide the information. It isn’t hard for DHS to get this information through its Person Centric Query System (PCQS) database. As the letter explains:
“[The PCQS database] allows agency employees to look up individuals and quickly and easily verify their citizenship status using only a name and date of birth. This means that, right now, DHS can answer all of your inquiries about the citizenship status of all presently registered voters and all persons attempting to register to vote and do so at no cost. You already have the authority to submit citizenship inquiries about registered voters to DHS, and you can demand immediate responses from DHS.”
There is no additional cost to the taxpayers, and we can protect the voters! Where is the “Sign My County Recorder Up” button for doing his or her job?
There’s another level of required scrutiny that’s also not happening in Arizona, and that’s where the Attorney General comes into play. AFL states that per state law, county recorders are “required to send ‘to the attorney general a list of all individuals who are registered to vote and who have not provided satisfactory evidence of citizenship’” so that the Attorney General may fulfill her obligation “to use all available resources to verify the citizenship status of the applicant[s].’”
Don’t hold your breath that this will happen under the current Maricopa County Recorder regime anytime soon! Stephen Richer’s attorneys replied to AFL’s letter, refusing to take any action.
When asked, he usually shrugs off the concern about foreign nationals on the voter rolls, arguing that federal-only voters are concentrated on college campuses, as if that somehow makes it OK. He’s even gotten to the point of challenging Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk for questioning any voter in Arizona not needing to provide proof of citizenship to vote:
BLUF: Arizona had a documented proof of citizenship law for all voters, but that was invalidated by US Supreme Court in 2012 (Arizona v. ITCA) because it conflicted with federal law. Therefore only applies to state voters.
Longer:
We've done this before a few times… But…
— Stephen Richer—MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) July 8, 2024
He also says federal-only voters have lower turnout than average voters, so there is nothing to worry about….
Hi. This is the correct in terms of the fed only voters who participated in the 2020 GE in Maricopa County.
Few points looking at above:
1) It is ILLEGAL to vote in federal elections in all 50 states if you are not a U.S. Citizen. These names are public records. In Arizona,…
— Stephen Richer—MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) April 16, 2024
Except the public doesn’t know how many federal-only voters cast ballots, as the number is not reported in the official statewide canvass by the Arizona Secretary of State.
While the current Maricopa County Recorder has published in his campaign communications that he thinks documented proof of citizenship should be required to vote in federal elections, adding that it’s not “an undue burden,” he stated that it’s the job of Congress to change the law.
Hi Stacey!
Great question. Yes, we do count "Fed only" ballots. As does every county in Arizona. Because it is required by federal law.
Hope it helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
Stephen
— Stephen Richer—MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) June 18, 2024
This is true. That would certainly help!
In the same campaign email, he stated that he supports Speaker Johnson’s proposal, the SAVE Act, which would require documented proof of citizenship to register to vote for federal elections. Still, he’s never come out on his award-winning X account to support the SAVE Act or Speaker Mike Johnson’s bold support of this game-changing legislation to secure our elections.
Here’s my friendly reminder that this is the same Recorder who was accused of using public resources to advocate against additional security measures for voting by mail. So, he’s certainly not averse to going out of bounds when fighting for or against a policy he favors.
Former President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “I have always had a horror of words that are not translated into deeds, of speech that does not result in action.”
The Maricopa County Recorder’s latest rebuff of AFL’s letter to take steps that clearly aren’t an undue burden on his office to keep the voter rolls clean, his lack of transparency on the issue of federal-only voters’ voting habits, his constant diminishing of concerns from the public, and his lack of public support for the SAVE Act certainly screams the loudest when it comes to where he truly stands on the issue.
If only there were someone who could provide a Diet Coke explainer video to show the current Recorder why Maricopa County citizens deserve election administration in which every possible effort is made to prohibit foreign nationals from accessing a ballot to cast a vote in our elections, maybe we would have a better chance at that “Sign My County Recorder Up” button functioning in Maricopa County.
Photo from the Maricopa County Recorder video published on X here.
Merissa Hamilton is the founder and chairwoman of the nonpartisan nonprofit organizations Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona and Strong Communities Action, also known as EZAZ.org, which are focused on making civic education and action as easy as pie. She’s an elected Member at Large of Congressional District 1 for the Arizona Republican Party and previously ran for Mayor in 2020. Merissa is also the Director of Integration and Policy at The R.O.A.R. PAC, which is on the mission of restoring our American Republic.
Obviously, it’s illegal for non-citizens to vote. The real question is whether voters must prove their citizenship prior to voting. This discussion has culminated in the U.S. House passing the SAVE Act earlier this month. But with near unanimous Democrat opposition, a federal proof of citizenship requirement has stalled in Congress.
As both a border and swing state, Arizona is center stage in this national discussion. Even Elon Musk chimed in by sharing an image of our voter registration form that clearly states “proof of citizenship” is not required to vote.
However, Arizona has done far more than any other state to tackle the issue of illegals voting.
In Arizona, if someone registers without proof of citizenship, they are registered as a “Federal Only Voter” and they receive a different ballot with only federal races. This means that: 1) we know exactly who and how many have registered without proof; and 2) they don’t get to influence any of our state or local elections.
In all 49 other states, proof of citizenship is not only not required, but they are all blended onto one list, and they get to vote in every election. So those states have no idea who or how many there even are! Their problem could be far bigger, and they would never know it.
On Tuesday, Maricopa County Elections officials held a press conference on the expectations voters can have over the next weeks as primary votes are cast and tabulated in the July 30th election. The performance of the Arizona election system will likely presage the General Election experience we can expect in November. Amidst the CrowdStrike outage and the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump looming over the proceedings the officials took questions from several outlets and briefed the press on projected turnout.
Maricopa County District 3 Supervisor Bill Gates began by addressing the increasingly tense atmosphere to the gathered reporters saying, “Unfortunately we’re talking about and thinking about political violence and our country right now in a way that we haven’t in a long time.”
He continued citing security concerns on election day, “We know that’s on people’s minds and that’s why we are committed to providing a safe and secure experience both for our elections workers as well as those people who go to vote .”
Gates added, “It’s very important that everybody understands that me and my colleagues on the board are committed to safe, secure and transparent elections.”
Responding to questions about the impact of CrowdStrike’s Friday outage on the election system, Fields Moseley, the Maricopa County Communications Director, told 12News, “We feel like we had a fairly low impact. Still, almost 400 people voted on Friday. We opened at 9 a.m. with four vote centers open and had a rolling opening all day long as those were fixed and 40 were opened before the end of the day. None of the tabulators were affected by this. They’re on an air-gap system. They’re not connected to the internet.”
The Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Arizona sent a joint letter to the Maricopa County Elections Director expressing their concerns following the disruption.
🚨@GOP and @AZGOP have requested information from Maricopa County on the CrowdStrike outage. Voters must have full confidence that election systems were not breached and that this will not happen again. pic.twitter.com/7UPgxUNgaY
— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) July 20, 2024
“The most recent occurrence is extremely worrisome due to the online nature of the issue and the implications if this were to happen on Election Day,” the state and national GOP said in part.
AZGOP Chair Gina Swoboda said in a statement accompanying the letter:
“Following the discovery that the global CrowdStrike outage had affected elections systems in Maricopa and Pima counties in Arizona, the RNC, AZGOP, and Trump Campaign’s election integrity department have sent a letter to every county in the state. We are demanding information on any other systems affected, if vulnerabilities were exploited, and full evidence demonstrating that there were no breaches to determine the extent of the issue. Most importantly, we must have complete assurance that this will not happen again and that the elections systems are not susceptible to these threats during our country’s most important election. These breaches highlight alarming fragilities in the voting system, and we need confirmation that there was no nefarious activity. How was this allowed to happen in a critical battleground state during the primary election?
Voters must have full confidence their ballots are protected. We will uncover the evidence and pursue every avenue needed to ensure the system is secure.”
Moseley replied, “We’re aware of the letter from the RNC. We will respond to the RNC at the appropriate time.” He continued, “We already publicly explained what happened to our ballot on demand system on Friday during the day. We opened at 9:00 a.m. with four vote centers open and had a rolling opening all day long as those were fixed and 40 were open before the end of the day. None of the tabulators were affected by this. They’re on an air gap system. They’re not connected to the internet.”
BREAKING: Reports are coming from Maricopa County, Arizona that Dominion voting machines are malfunctioning county-wide as a result of the CrowdStrike outage. Officials have long claimed that the machines are NEVER connected to the internet… you can laugh at those claims now… pic.twitter.com/t5A6SIImKY
Addressing concerns for the General Election, Jennifer Liewer, the Maricopa County Deputy Elections Director for Communications told the conference, “We will have over 240 vote centers open, so if a vote center does go down, people are able to choose from a different vote center, but we will have increased resources, increased technology personnel.” She added, “We are prepared should something occur on Election Day to be able to be responsive without knowing that what exactly might happen and obviously you can um do the best you can to plan for things. And I think our staff being flexible responsive.”
She continued, “Our IT staff were up in the middle of the night on site at MCTEC helping get computers rebooted. It was really all hands on deck and Maricopa County voters can know that we are dedicated and even if that means getting up in the middle of the night and coming into work, we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that everybody who wants to cast a vote has the ability to do so.”
Moseley, describing the impact of the CrowdStrike outage, noted, “Friday was a pretty unique event,” even quipping: “I mean let’s ask Delta Airlines.” Responding to a question on converting to a different system he told reporters, that he couldn’t say for sure if the county is “re-evaluating,” its use of CrowdStrike for cyber security or Microsoft’s products, which he referred to as “ubiquitous.”
The officials noted that the county is anticipating 623,000 ballots to be cast in total by mail, dropbox, or in-person for the primary election with approximately 94,000 of those being in-person on election day. Approximate projections for total turnout are from 718,000-894,000 or about 30% of the electorate.
Assistant County Manager Zach Schira stressed the staffing levels and heavy investment the county has made in elections stating, “Good people ran lawful elections in Maricopa County in 2020 and 2022 and are doing so in 2024. Our full-time election staff, supplemented by thousands of members of this community, are trained to ensure we are following the law.” He added, “Over the past year, the Board of Supervisors has invested heavily in elections: more than $15 million in new money towards resources and equipment that directly impact the efficiency and security of our operations. Bottom line: we are well resourced, well planned, well trained for next Tuesday’s Primary and the entire 2024 cycle.”
American elections should be decided by American voters. That is why the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, legislation that defends that basic principle by requiring proof of citizenship to vote.
In a sane world — especially with an election on the horizon — the SAVE Act would quickly get a vote in the Senate and pass overwhelmingly. Unfortunately, that will not be the case due to Democratic objections to citizenship verification.
On the bright side, as Democrats attempt to normalize the practice of noncitizen voting in local-government elections, many states are not waiting around for Congress to fix the problem. Missouri, North Carolina, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Iowa, Wisconsin and Kentucky have advanced constitutional amendments to the ballot to let voters decide for themselves whether or not proof of citizenship should be required to vote.
Ohio and Louisiana voters advanced noncitizen voting bans by wide margins this year, bringing the total number of states to implement such a ban up to seven.
Most Americans believe it is common sense to verify that voters are citizens before they get a ballot, according to polling from Honest Elections Project. In fact, only 9% of respondents believe noncitizens should be able to vote in American elections.
However, contrary to popular opinion, progressive attorneys like Marc Elias have convinced like-minded judges to interpret federal law to prevent states from checking an individual’s citizenship during the voter-registration process. As a result, we are forced to rely on nothing more than an unaccountable honor system to police one of the most important aspects of the franchise.
Sometimes illegal registrations are innocent mistakes or the result of noncitizens being misled into believing they can vote. Other times, it happens deliberately. Thanks to our lax laws, it is clearly possible for noncitizens to cast ballots in American elections.
Democrats want to keep it that way.
Washington, D.C., recently enacted a policy to allow noncitizens to vote in 2022. Even the Washington Post editorial board condemned the law, noting that “[s]ome progressives hope that reshaping the electorate will allow them to reshape local politics, prodding the city further to the left on issues such as rent control and spending on social programs.”
The New York City Council passed a similar resolution to allow noncitizen voting in 2022. Thankfully, it was ruled unconstitutional by a state appeals court. Had that not been the case, it would have allowed hundreds of thousands of noncitizens to vote in local elections.
For decades, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the highest ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, has openly advocated for noncitizen voting.
The fact is noncitizen voting has gone mainstream on the left. Progressives are actively looking for ways to change the composition of the electorate to push American politics to the left, from lowering the voting age to enfranchising felons — and, yes, noncitizens.
It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal races, they retort. That is true, but merely making something illegal does not stop it, because noncitizens do register and vote.
Democrats are exceedingly out of touch with the median voter on this issue. Perhaps that is why today’s left rejects the idea of the people choosing their government in favor of the government choosing a new people.
The House Democrats’ near unanimous opposition to the SAVE Act and the Democrat-controlled Senate’s likely refusal to consider the bill shows that liberals are not committed to safeguarding American elections from the influence of noncitizens.
The American people deserve to know why liberal politicians in Washington are so keen to put the interests of foreign nationals over the voting rights of American citizens. More state lawmakers must join the effort to secure our elections by nipping this trend in the bud.
This fall, the people of Arizona will have a number of critical decisions to make about the future of our state. But one initiative may be the most important issue facing voters in November.
Earlier this month, the special interests behind a plan to bring California-style jungle primaries and ranked choice voting to Arizona submitted signatures with the Arizona Secretary of State to qualify the so-called “Make Elections Fair Act” for the November General Election. If approved, this proposed constitutional amendment would not only make our elections unfair, but it would radically change how Arizonans select and approve candidates for public office in several alarming ways.
The Measure Grants One Politician Too Much Power
It’s never a good idea to give one politician total power over anything—especially an election—but that’s exactly what the Make Elections (Un)Fair Act would do. The measure grants one politician, in this case the Secretary of State, the power to determine how many candidates will appear on the general election ballot for each race. On top of that, the Secretary of State could even decide how many candidates advance in his or her own race…
