PHOENIX — America First Legal is suing the Arizona secretary of state for not releasing the list of 216,000 voters, mostly longtime residents who didn’t prove their citizenship under a 2004 law, affected by a coding error.
The Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona is a client of the conservative litigation group, and its public-records request was declined.
“By refusing public access to these records, the Defendants frustrate the core purpose of the Public Records Law, to ‘monitor the performance of the government officials,’” the lawsuit says.
“And because these records deal with a pressing issue of immediate public concern, time is of the essence. The Defendants should be ordered to immediately fulfill Plaintiff’s public records request,” it continues, specifically asking the request be fulfilled by Oct. 7.
But Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ legal counsel expressed concern that handing the list over to the nonprofit could lead to voter intimidation.
“We fear, especially based on SCF’s filings, that its true desire here is not to keep watch on government actions — which our public records laws are designed to facilitate — but instead harass and intimidate voters in the midst of an election and whose rights Secretary Fontes has already vindicated before Arizona’s highest court,” said a Sept. 24 letter explaining the decision not to honor the request.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled the voters could receive a full ballot given how close it was to ballots starting to get mailed out at the time of the decision. Originally there were 98,000 people thought to be on the list, but a total of 118,000 more were discovered.
These voters are primarily longtime residents who had not been asked to fulfill the obligation created in 2004 to show proof of citizenship for voter registration. The court ruled they will have to show proof for future elections. Regardless of the outcome, it would have never affected federal races, as the additional citizenship requirement is a matter of state law.
In an update Thursday, Fontes’ office said it has been sending county recorders throughout the state voter data “from the initial” group “with information that would enable SAVE database verification so the County Recorders can begin conducting citizenship verification.” The office told The Post it does “not comment on pending litigation.”
Fontes’ office also said efforts are underway to verify proof of citizenship with “internal and external sources” in hopes of shortening the list. The office also revised the number from roughly 218,000 to 216,000.
“We need to keep in mind that this situation happened through no fault of the impacted individual registrants,” Fontes said. “All of the Arizonans affected by this issue remain eligible voters and are long-time Arizona residents. All have attested under penalty of perjury — the same standard the rest of the country uses — that they are U.S. citizens. Had it not been for the unique burden created by the implementation of Arizona’s Prop 200 in 2004, this issue wouldn’t even exist.”
