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.
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.”
I’ve consulted with several Maricopa County constituents and learned very few of us understand the role and responsibilities of the Superintendent of Schools. One thing’s for sure, we cannot allow a simpleton to remain in office. For those unaware, Maricopa County Superintendent Steve Watson—who was elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2020—is currently under heavy scrutiny for fraud.
The “May 2024 Maricopa County Regional School District Performance Audit” cites multiple findings of budget mismanagement and suspicious financial activities. MCRSD, which includes the Juvenile Detention Education Program and the Maricopa Accommodation Schools, are directly under Watson’s governance. Below are a few highlighted results from the performance audit:
“District administration and plant operations costs for the last two full fiscal years exceed the state average for school districts…Recommendations: Establish an expenditure budget for the Schools that include budget balance carry forward for which cash reserves are on deposit…Obtain training on school district budget and finance.”
“Budgeting practices are ineffective and do not prevent overspending and cash deficits. Lack of understanding and communication regarding the District’s budget have led to excessive expenditures and cash deficits…Recommendations: Ensure the correct budget is uploaded to [the Arizona Department of Education]…Monitor cash levels to prevent interest charges assessed on line of credit usage.”
“The District did not comply with State procurement guidelines when executing purchases in excess of required thresholds…Recommendations: Comply with [Arizona Administrative Codes] and [Uniform System of Financial Records] prior to executing purchases…Ensure curriculum is approved by the District Governing Board.”
In 2022, the Accommodation School District spent $2 million over its budget. Also, on July 17, 2024, ABC 15 Arizona politely reported, “Maricopa County school districts are needing to shell out about $150 million after a judge says a group of property owners were improperly taxed…that money needs to be returned as part of a lawsuit.”
What good is a county superintendent who refuses to comply with state laws and regulations? Not only is Watson fiscally incompetent, he’s also a Republican hack who cannot be trusted to appoint conservative candidates to school boards.
Many constituents have mentioned to me that Watson’s strategy as a follower of Mormon religion is to deliberately select Mormons to serve in office. I will say this appears to be the case with Courtney Davis in Mesa Public Schools (MPS) and Rebecca Proudfit in Peoria Unified School District (PUSD). And, like Watson, they identify as conservatives while governing as liberals.
When the time came for Watson to fill an MPS Governing Board vacancy, he intentionally bypassed candidate Ed Steele—a strong conservative, community leader and runner up during the 2022 midterm elections. Before administering the oath of office to Davis, Watson told constituents:
“This is really hard because when I say good and nice things about somebody who I hold in high esteem, other people think that’s umm — they might feel like I’m putting other people down. And that’s not the case. Here in [MPS], we had 49 people initially apply for this vacancy…and so, Courtney is great. She’s going to do a terrific job. And that’s not to say that the other people were terrible…In choosing Courtney, I had to pick somebody, right? Somebody has to get this position…Just understand this isn’t putting anybody else down.”
Seriously!? What public official talks like this!?
Watson gave a social-emotional speech instead of telling the people exactly who Courtney Davis is. What qualifications put her above the other 48 applicants? Did she attend and speak at any MPS board meetings before the appointment? Are her kids even enrolled in Mesa’s public schools? What are her core values? What leadership experience does she possess? Surely, religious affiliation wasn’t Watson’s only prerequisite for appointing her…right?
Well, it’s been a year and Mesa constituents now know where Davis’ values truly lie. From seconding the reelection of corrupt Marcie Hutchinson for MPS board president, to campaigning alongside Democrats, Davis—who coincidentally registered as “nonpartisan”—is decidedly left. Make no mistake, Ed Steele and Sharon Benson are the trustworthy conservatives running for Mesa Board of Education.
In PUSD, Watson intentionally bypassed several qualified, conservative candidates (namely Jeff Tobey) to appoint Proudfit. Over the past nine months, she has wittingly veered left.
Despite all this and more, some LD leaders in the West Valley have forfeited wisdom and discernment. There are talks of tainting the so-called “golden ticket” by promoting Proudfit as a conservative PUSD candidate. And for no other reason than she’s a nice person and she’s well-liked by affluent Establishment Republican types (a.k.a. RINOs). This is asinine. We only need to fill two seats for a conservative majority. Make no mistake, Jeff Tobey and Janelle Bowles are the only trustworthy conservatives running for Peoria school board.
For the record, I don’t vote for people because they’re nice or popular. I’m highly suspicious of representatives who claim to align with one party but are constantly praised by the opposition. I also refuse to cast a vote for anyone who doesn’t have time to run a campaign. Furthermore, if I were a respected public servant, I would not waste my endorsements on Democrats (a topic for another day). This foolishness is not a strategy. Just because you like someone and they have an “R” behind their name doesn’t mean throw away the Constitution and common sense.
This November, I’m calling on Arizonans to vote policies over personalities; vote for deep-rooted values over shallow virtues. Don’t just check a box because the person’s name is familiar. Do your research, increase your voter IQ, and vet the candidates, regardless of your relationship with them.
Join the conversation with two conservative candidates for Maricopa County Superintendent on Sunday, July 28 @ 3pm.
Tiffany is the Founder of Restore Parental Rights in Education, a grassroots advocate for families, educators, and school board members. For nearly two decades, Tiffany’s creative writing pursuits have surpassed most interests as she continues to contribute to her blog Bigviewsmallwindow.com. She encourages everyday citizens to take an active role in defending and preserving American values for future generations.
The global IT outage that occurred Thursday night impacted Arizona’s early voting operations well into Friday.
Arizona’s three largest counties — Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal — were impacted by the outage. Together, they account for over 80 percent of the state’s population.
In Maricopa County some vote centers’ check-in systems weren’t functioning, explained an elections department spokesperson.
“The vote center equipment is connected via a network to facilitate voter check in and cast their ballots,” said the spokesperson.
Maricopa County started the day with a few vote centers open. That number grew to 14 by the afternoon.
— Maricopa County Elections (@MaricopaVote) July 19, 2024
The outage impacted Pima County’s online system to request a mail-in ballot. As a result, early voting has been limited, with election workers providing provisional ballots instead.
Important Update: Due to global internet outage, voting services are limited. Please note, provisional ballots will be issued until further notice. pic.twitter.com/F2cKC1LePM
— Pima County Recorder's Office (@PimaRecorder) July 19, 2024
Pinal County early voting was restored hours after the outage.
Early Voting in Pinal County is OPEN today, July 19, 2024
Last night, our Endpoint Detection and Response Software, Crowdstrike, caused a global outage affecting Windows systems worldwide, including those at Pinal County.
A majority of employee computer and server technologies unrelated to election operations were also impacted across Arizona’s counties.
The outage occurred through Microsoft’s partner CrowdStrike. The Austin, Texas-based software company said in a statement that the outage wasn’t caused by a cyber attack or security incident, but rather a defect in a single content update to its “Falcon Sensor” software for Windows hosts intended to protect against hackers. Mac and Linux hosts weren’t impacted.
CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…
CrowdStrike provides antivirus software to Microsoft for Windows devices. After 16 hours, Microsoft reported that all impacted apps and services had recovered.
We're investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services. More info posted in the admin center under MO821132 and on https://t.co/W5Y8dAkjMk
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 18, 2024
The secretary of state’s office clarified that voter rolls weren’t affected by the outage.
In a press release, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes reassured voters that the registration system was secure and operational. Fontes noted that the closed, air-gapped tabulation networks were unaffected, and that access has been restored fully to agency computers used for verifying petition signatures.
“The current global outage is affecting systems worldwide and is not specific to elections or Arizona,” said Fontes.
Fontes clarified that the closed, air-gapped nature of the tabulation networks means that election-support infrastructure, such as email and web servers, are on separate systems.
“[It] is important to note that vote counting was not impacted at all by this event,” said Fontes. “No significant operational delays have been identified at this time.”
From the office of the Secretary of State: Addressing the global issue connected to Crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/jpzFbM9Q3V
— Arizona Secretary of State (@AZSecretary) July 19, 2024
Arizona’s voting operations weren’t the only ones impacted. Both government agencies and private industries were affected: airports, airlines, banks, broadcasters, emergency 911 call centers, and hospitals were all affected. Among CrowdStrike users are over half of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies.
United, American, Delta, and Allegiant airlines were grounded overnight at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Southwest Airlines was unaffected because they operate on Windows 3.1: a version over 30 years old.
Cochise County didn’t mention elections-related outages, but did report that their 911 dispatch center and sheriff’s department were impacted and required their IT team’s work. The Phoenix Police Department also experienced issues with its computerized 911 dispatch center.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
Authorities from the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) are now re-conducting logic and accuracy testing on county election equipment following the theft of an electronic key fob from the Ballot Tabulation Center last Thursday. The suspect, a now-former employee, Walter Ringfield, 27, was terminated from his role Friday and has since been placed under arrest after surveillance footage revealed him pocketing a red lanyard holding the security device. A police report obtained by the Arizona Sun Times stated that “Walter said the job was temporary and he was trying to make it permanent, so he wanted to clean up,” without further explanation.
Ringfield has been charged with counts of both misdemeanor theft and felony criminal damage and is currently being held by Maricopa County. He was denied bail due to a prior criminal history which the Times noted involved allegedly trespassing and stealing from the Arizona Senate Building.
UPDATE: DPS is investigating a theft of some personal items from a Senate employee. The crime occurred at the Senate on June 15th. The suspect appears to be the same individual recently arrested for stealing from Maricopa County. In response to requests from the public, we are… pic.twitter.com/RrNZQ4Q7f4
A county spokesman explained via email to The Center Square, “On Friday morning, when completing a daily inventory, Maricopa County elections workers identified that an item was taken from the Ballot Tabulation Center on Thursday evening, and staff took immediate action to investigate the matter and contacted the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.”
They added, “The stolen item has been recovered but to ensure the integrity of Maricopa County Elections, election workers are reprogramming and re-conducting logic and accuracy testing of all equipment.”
At a joint press conference Tuesday, Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates and Maricopa County Sheriff Russ Skinner explained that the device is used on election day to access tabulators. Gates told reporters, “So this black security key right here, this is utilized under normal circumstances. This is just used on Election Day. This is for the Election Day tabulators. So the folks who are involved in that going out to the 223 vote centers that we have across Maricopa County on July 30, on primary day. This will be out there. What we do at the beginning of each day, we do an inventory check and make sure that we have all of these black security keys.”
He added, “We did that on Friday morning. We found that one was missing. So immediately, our team and elections, they spoke to all of the people who were working in the ballot tabulation center on Thursday, the day before, and they also reviewed the security camera footage. So we have security cameras, we also have the live stream cameras. They evaluated that, and they determined that the suspect that we’ve been talking about had taken the black security key and put it in his pocket and then removed it from the ballot tabulation center.”
“When people who we have entrusted to work on elections violate that trust, we’re going to act upon it. We’re going to act strongly, we’re going to get to the bottom of it and we’re going to make sure [that] if there’s someone else who decides to do something like this, we’ll be on the phone with the sheriff again,” Gates said.
“We’re not messing around here. This is too important and we know that the residents of Maricopa County and the voters of Maricopa County are trusting in us to make sure that this is a safe and secure election.” The Arizona Secretary of State’s office said in a statement published by the New York Post that actions taken by Maricopa County following the incident should “reassure the public” about the “security measures in place.”
“Our systems are not only designed to detect anomalies but are also supported by dedicated professionals committed to upholding the democratic process. While this event is unwelcome, it speaks the effectiveness of the security protocols built into Arizona’s election systems.”
“The swift actions of the Maricopa County elections staff, including the re-conducting of logic and accuracy tests, builds in extra layers of protection of all affected equipment. This quick response will prevent any potential impact on the upcoming elections. The Secretary of State’s office will collaborate with law enforcement to address and investigate this incident to ensure accountability and swift justice,” the statement concluded.
Maricopa County told the press in a statement that the leadership of both parties were notified Friday of the new Logic and Accuracy testing along with information about the theft and the County’s actions. Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement published by the Times, “The RNC and AZGOP dispatched attorneys and observers on the ground as part of our election integrity program to gather information and promote transparency as the situation developed. The RNC and AZGOP have a long history of engaging in Maricopa County election issues both in the field and in the courtroom, and yesterday’s events are an example of our election integrity program’s capacity to provide real-time legal response when issues arise at tabulation centers. This incident raises serious questions about election security in Arizona that must be answered – we will be constructively engaged with Maricopa County officials to ensure that the remedies to this security breach sufficiently address our concerns.”
