About 1,700 people in Arizona voted in 2018 with a federal-only ballot. Two years later, the number grew to 11,600 individuals.
After Arizona officials signed a consent decree agreeing to let voters who failed to provide proof of U.S. citizenship on their state voter application forms vote in federal elections anyway, Arizona saw an “explosion” of voters casting federal-only ballots. The soaring numbers coincide with millions of illegal immigrants flooding into the United States.
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In 2022, the Republican-led legislature passed two election integrity bills aimed at ensuring citizenship at the polls. As the Arizona Free Enterprise Club summarized, House Bill 2492 requires county recorders to reject any application for state voter registration that does not include documentary proof of citizenship. The bill also requires proof of citizenship to vote in presidential elections.
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, Fontes and his leftist predecessor, now-Gov. Katie Hobbs, have failed to do critical voter list maintenance. More than a dozen Arizona counties appear to be in violation of Section 8 of the (NVRA), which mandates states keep accurate and current voter rolls for elections for federal office.
AZ Free News reported last year that in two quarterly reports issued to the state legislature, the secretary of state’s office noted that it had received reports of more than 78,200 potentially invalid voters. The numbers included more than 1,300 individuals “who admitted to not being a citizen on a jury questionnaire”; and north of 23,600 people “who admitted to not being a resident of a county on a jury questionnaire.”
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“Election integrity means counting every lawful vote and prohibiting any attempt to illegally cast a vote,” Ducey wrote in a letter to Hobbs.
The left attacked, almost immediately. Several challenges making the usual hysterical claims of “voter suppression” were filed by roughly 20 far-left plaintiffs
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Legal observers say the case, which has already involved the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court
on ancillary matters, is destined for appeal.
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Meanwhile, Fontes, Arizona’s secretary of state, released an updated election manual in late December. The manual, created by Democrats for Democrats, thumbs its nose at the election integrity laws, allowing, among other things, voter registration applicants failing to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal races.